Scarlet
by Yamisui
Summary: Son and brother, genius and killer. This is Itachi's story, from cradle to manhood, a descent into darkness with a mind so terribly clear it redefines the borders of madness. Power at any price, strength at any cost...
1. Prodigy

_Author's Note: Those of you looking for lemons or fluff will hate this. Turn back now and go find yourself some Uchihacest pr0n to read. This is not meant to make you pity Uchiha Itachi. Rather, it's my interpretation of the story behind the shinobi who bears the character "scarlet" on his ring, from cradle to manhood, told through Itachi's eyes. And the world through Itachi's eyes is a place where genius and ambition blur the line between good and evil . . ._

"_Chichi-ue" means "father." _

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**OoO SCARLET OoO**

_Moonlight turning_

_Blurs the line of shine and shadow;_

_Lights my crimson path_

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**Prologue: Reunion of the Two**

**Otafuku Village**

_My hand clenches into a fist around this fragile throat, so forcefully that even _I_ am surprised . . . and I don't surprise easily. Beneath my thumb I feel the delicate pulse of the vein, so much more rapid and frantic than mine. It's the pulse of a rabbit caught in the jaws of the wolf. I can feel the muscles knotting in his neck as he struggles for breath; muscles that were not there when last I laid a hand on him. Yet for all the changes, not much has changed. Pathetically his fingers claw at my forearm, forsaking all strength in his desperation to live. He's still so very desperate to live._

_Is that all? _

_Is that ALL?_

_I press more of my body weight into my fist, pinning him so firmly against the wall that he can't even turn his head. And I stare coldly into his pale, young face; his wide, dark eyes, searching for myself._

**

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**OoO OoO OoO**

**OoO OoO Chapter 1: Prodigy OoO OoO**

When I was three I remember a neighbor telling my mother that I was an old soul in a child's body. Given the hindsight of an adult, I doubt the old man meant it entirely as a joke. I was a serious child. My mother told me time and time again that from the moment I was born I smiled only at the strangest of things. I never laughed at the odd faces adults make for infants, or at the gifts my relatives lavished upon me. But I laughed whenever my father spoke to me.

"He's mocking you, Uchiha-_san_," a friend once told my father.

"Of course not!" my father insisted, grasping me firmly beneath my arms and lifting me deftly above his head. "My child is full of life, and he knows it."

Then he would lower me with his strong arms and set me back on my feet.

"You love _Chichi-ue, _don't you?" he would say to me softly, as if to keep it secret from everyone else. "My Itachi."

Did I love him? Maybe I did. Not that it matters.

Even before I learned to walk, I began running away. I crawled onto the porch, or into the small garden in the courtyard behind our house. My parents worried, but they needn't have. I wasn't the sort of infant to reach for everything in sight and put it in my mouth. No; _I_ was a _watcher_. Instead of crawling out into the street where I might've been stepped on, I sat on the porch and stared with avid fascination at the passers-by. When they found me, my parents would lift me into their arms and clasp me to them fiercely, alternately scolding and proclaiming their relief.

But my father was also proud of my curiosity.

"He's so eager to see what's going on in the village," he would claim proudly over dinner with my uncles. "Already my child Itachi knows his place."

But I didn't want to see _what _was happening. My frank child's eyes showed me the truth of _that. _What I wondered as I watched them pass me by was "_Why?_" Why did the men and women carry weapons while their children ran laughing through the streets? Why did some laugh, while others wept or wore faces grim as death? Of course, my mind couldn't form these questions into words at so young an age, but the questions were there nonetheless. I didn't learn to speak properly until I was nearly three years old. Speech just wasn't important to me when I was busy drinking the world in through my eyes.

But once I began to speak, and to join the other children in their games, I began to hear the word "genius" used often around me. Though small, I was the strongest of the Uchiha children---except for Shisui, who was four years older than me and could move so fast his body blurred. I was aware that people were beginning to call me "genius," and from the very first I didn't like it. I was a boy, not a word. But the adults who saw the way I watched things and who listened to what I had to say always began to refer to "_that genius Itachi_," and not to _me_.

"I'm _right here_," I would insist, planting myself in front of them when they spoke that way. "_I'm_ Itachi." And they'd laugh and lavish me with affection, thinking that was what I wanted.

I wasn't really certain _what_ I wanted at that point---maybe something worthwhile to do to distract me from the endless chorus of "_Why? Why? Why?" _in my head.

Just two years after I mastered speech there was talk of sending me to school. And it wasn't just _any _school, but the Konoha Academy itself. My family wanted me to skip the preliminary school and enroll directly, though this would put me in with classmates twice my age. I wasn't sure what to make of this notion, but if it was something new I was willing to try. My enrollment at the age of five was an unusual request, but my parents were strongly adamant about it. I'd learned to read and write soon after learning to speak, and in that sense I was already beyond the level of those entering the preliminary school. My father in particular saw great potential in me, and he wanted me to learn the ninja's trade as soon as possible. My precocious strength excited him, because I think that even then he foresaw the day when I would surpass him. All fathers, I suppose, wish for their children to surpass them. But I think they also secretly fear it, for never is the waning of age so apparent to a man's eyes as when he bears witness to the waxing of youth.

Perhaps I _am _an old soul . . . Not that it matters.

The request for my premature enrollment in Konoha's ninja academy was apparently such an anomaly that it required the highest consideration. The Hokage himself came to visit our house, along with several of my uncles, who were men of particular influence both in the Uchiha Clan and in Konoha's policing force. The day the Hokage came I was sitting in the garden by myself, crouched by the little stream that ran through its center and utterly absorbed. My parents had left me to myself for a bit while they discussed their proposal with the others, and I was content to let them, because even if I had attended it wasn't as if they were going to talk to _me. _

So I sat bent over the stream, playing. I'd made a game of darting my hand into the water and withdrawing it as quickly as possible without making ripples. I wasn't aware of the Hokage's presence behind me until he quite deliberately stepped on a stick.

I half-turned and saw a young man with yellow hair and very sharp blue eyes standing there. He wasn't what I'd been expecting. Having only seen the Hokage from afar and in ceremonial dress, I'd pictured him as an older man, with dark hair like the Uchiha and a far more impressive stature. This man was of medium height, and looked as if he were at least ten years younger than my father. He smiled warmly at me, but he was obviously here to study me and see if I really was _that genius Itachi._ I didn't return the smile.

"What are you doing?" he asked me, kneeling down beside me on the gray flagstones bordering the stream.

I returned my attention to my dripping hand, which I still held poised above the water. Suddenly my game seemed childish to me, and I wished he hadn't caught me at it. I was unnerved by his presence because I didn't think a Hokage should be sitting beside me on the ground when he was so much more powerful. But he seemed to be waiting patiently for my answer, so I replied, "Testing myself."

This elicited a laugh from him, and I stared at him in surprise. His whole face seemed to flash when he laughed, like a mirror catching the sun.

"Oh, I see," he chuckled. "Well, then I suppose _I_ don't need to test you. But why are you testing yourself? Are you worried about being allowed into school?"

I shook my head, looking down again.

"I want to know what I can do," I told him solemnly. "I don't care how strong other people think I am."

He smiled at me again, but this time it was a quiet smile, and his gaze was thoughtful.

"That's very wise, Itachi-_kun_," he told me, and once again I looked at him in surprise. The Hokage was looking at me as if he truly understood me, which I found comforting and unnerving at the same time. "Can you show me?" he asked, gesturing toward the water. Mutely, I nodded.

Then I bent over the stream and demonstrated how I could cut through the water's surface by wielding my hand like a blade, leaving only the faintest of disturbances. The Hokage seemed duly impressed, but he didn't praise me for it. Instead he said, "I've heard that you don't speak much. But you are very gifted, Itachi-_kun_, and you must not be afraid to tell people what you're thinking."

I knew then what it was that he'd been discussing with my parents at such length.

Not two days beforehand my mother had told me she was going to have another child. I wasn't sure what she expected of me, but I was interested. I asked her why mothers wanted to give birth to children.

She smiled gently at me and said, "Because we love them."

I frowned at her. "But what's the _reason_?"

She pulled me into her embrace, saying only, "Children are born to be loved," to which my only response was to nod seriously.

I could see she was troubled by this.

"Are you happy, Itachi?" she asked unexpectedly.

I blinked in bemusement.

"I don't know," was my final answer.

A child at the time, I didn't understand what it was she wanted. But somehow, because of something I had or hadn't said, I'd made her unhappy. This, in turn, troubled me, because it was something I didn't understand. But later I learned that this was why she'd suddenly begun to share my father's adamancy about my enrolling early in the academy. She felt I was too "isolated," and that I needed to "interact with others more." She was worried.

And I was confused, because I'd made her worry.

I realized the Hokage wasn't there that day to test my skills. He was there to see if I were really as worrisome as my parents claimed. Wanting to please him, I answered, "I want to go to school. I want to learn new things, and to understand other people. That's what I think."

He gazed at me in silence for a moment; a silence broken only by the babbling of the brook. Then he laughed again, flashing the sun's brightness in my earnest little face.

"Uchiha Itachi, if only _all_ our students wanted to learn so badly," he told me. "Konoha would be full to the brim with Jounin."

I was very young then, and eager to please; especially the Yondaime, who spoke to me and not _that genius, _and whom I, like other children my age, had always idolized because of the stories we'd heard of him. I thought the academy might really give me the answers to my _why's_, and I told him so in so many words. He grew more serious then, and laid a firm hand on my shoulder.

"The Uchiha bloodline carries great responsibility," he said, "because it's so powerful. But there's a difference between being powerful and being strong, Itachi-_kun_. A powerful man asks, 'What can I do?' A strong man asks, 'What can I do for _others_?' When you begin learning a ninja's arts, you are accepting the possibility that you may die defending the ones you're obligated to protect."

I stared at him, and my mouth fell open a little. No one had ever said something like that to me before, and I was stunned. I'd never thought of _where_ my precocious strength was leadingme; I'd only been aware of the fact that it _was _leading me. That was what he intended in coming to speak to me that day; to make me aware of the loyalties that bound the Leaf-_nin _to their village.

He was doing so because the powerful ones who failed to learn that before becoming _more _powerful often became dangerous.

But back then, I didn't see it that way. I was in awe that the Yondaime had deigned to speak with me, and fascinated by the idea of being willing to die for other people. He had very strong charisma, the Fourth did. That was why we all looked up to him. Sitting there beside him in the courtyard, I thought to myself, _The Hokage knows many answers. I want to grow into a man just like him._

He explained to me what the ninja code of honor meant to him, which I listened to with rapt attention. Then he rose and left me, stepping through the sliding door into the house to confer again with my parents. Left to myself, I leaped to my feet and rushed to my room. There I found a quill and a scroll and wrote down everything that he had told me, so I'd never forget. I would destroy it eight years later, in deep disgust. It was no great loss; there was no real wisdom in his ideas about strength.

The Fourth was a fool.

He was defeated not by Kyuubi, but by his own brave, stupid ideals.

_Shinobi _are not born powerful to make martyrs of themselves.

But my disillusionment didn't come for many years, and so when I was small I idolized the Yondaime like all the others.

The verdict was reached, of course, that I was indeed to be sent to school. I was to begin the same term as my cousin Shisui, which meant within three weeks of the decision being made.

On the appointed day, I set out from home with a _bento_ from my mother and a head full of questions. At my side walked Shisui, seeming a great deal less optimistic. He was usually such a cheerful person, but that day he seemed full of some grim sense of duty. I was curious.

"Does Shisui-_sempai _not like coming to school with me?" I asked him. He had never bullied me, though he was far stronger and could have if he'd wanted to.

Now he turned to look at me, very solemn with his shaggy black hair falling over his face and his jaw set with determination.

"I will look after you, Itachi" he told me firmly. "It's important that we go together."

I wasn't too keen on this. "Did _Chichi-ue _tell you to?"

"Yeah," he admitted, with hardly any sheepishness. "But I've already decided that it's my special mission."

"What Class mission is it?" I asked, distracted again by my curiosity. "D? A? _S?_"

This made him laugh. He always found things I said funny that I hadn't meant to be funny at all, but I didn't mind. He always called me Itachiand never _that genius._

By the end of our first day at school, however, I realized why my father had been worried. With my other classmates, it was hatred at first sight. They didn't like that I knew all the answers, they didn't understand my unabashed desire to learn, and they _certainly _disliked being out-shown by someone three years younger than they were. I believe I would've been a target for bullying if it weren't for Shisui. When I walked home from school with him, moving in his shade like a shadow, the others shot us looks but never bothered us.

As I've said before, Shisui was the strongest of the younger Uchiha, and in those days he walked around with a chip on his shoulder. He never returned the glares, but sometimes his eyes would flash red, for the briefest of instants. He was warning them that I was _his _shadow, and they had no right to harm me. Shisui always was a hothead; my parents said so. The Uchiha were widely respected, and he seemed to take any hostility toward me as an affront to his Clan. He treated me like a friend, but also like a symbol of the Uchiha, whose honor he was bound to protect. I can't say I liked being treated like a symbol any more than _that genius, _but I liked Shisui. Maybe even loved him; he became like my brother. Not that any of that matters.

Well . . . maybe it did matter, after all. Without that bond, I wouldn't be what I am today. I owe him that, at least.

But it's enough to say that in those days, the both of us were alone together often, and so came to prefer each others' company.

A year rolled by. My mother's belly grew large and low-slung; my aunts said she was carrying a girl. When she finally gave birth, on a dull, hot summer day, it was a boy. I was allowed in to see them afterward and I remember it well: my mother sweaty with her black hair straggled across her brow; the tiny creature in her arms red and screaming. My father came in behind me, silent but proud. He laid a large hand on the crowns of each of our heads---mine and my brother's---and he stood there for a moment as if just by touching us both he was connecting us together in his heart. His Uchiha children, who would one day bear the Sharingan as he did. His sons, who would fight side by side for the glory of our clan. I felt no connection, though. Whatever my father felt, to me it was just a hand resting on my head, a little heavy. I wanted to shake it off.

I didn't hate my new brother, but neither did I love him. He was simply _there. _The only active good that came of his presence in the house was that he kept my mother occupied. I was glad she had another child to care for; it distracted her from worrying about me.

In the meantime, I was growing stronger under the tutelage of the Academy. I always practiced with Shisui; he taught me things he'd learned in his more advanced classes. This, of course, only served to deepen the resentment my own classmates bore me. But I was beginning to realize just how stupid their hatred was, and how little it meant to me. After all, I would one day become much stronger than they were, and the Hokage had told me it was the duty of the strong to protect the weak. In my eyes, they were weak, because all they could do was hate me.

My heart was firmly set upon becoming a strong man.

And then . . . the Fourth died. Three months later. Swiftly, like a flame snuffed by the wind.

One day, as Shisui and I were heading for school, the sentries at Konoha's gates sent out cries of alarm. The news went traveling across the Village like wildfire, even before the earth began to shake. A great demon fox bearing nine tails was headed straight for our village. I don't know its true origin---the Kyuubi's. At that time, Konoha was newly out of a war with the Stone Country. Our list of casualties was long---particularly the Uchiha, which I will speak of later. Once the Kyuubi reached the village, the list grew. Our forces were deployed a second time, to face a threat unlike any they'd ever faced before---or at least a force that none of those living in that era could remember facing.

The ground trembled and shook, and some of the older buildings collapsed. As was standard in times of invasion, the civilians, women and children were herded into underground shelters. There is a particularly large network of tunnels under Konoha, all of which lead to larger chambers beneath the mountain where the Hokage memorial monument is carved. It's a dank, musty place with poor lighting and even poorer water quality. To say nothing of sewage. Of course we didn't complain, because we were _shinobi _children and already we had been taught that suffering was our fate in life. There were no screams or flights of panic as we filed into the tunnels. There might have been tears, but mine were not among them. I was only five, but I had left tears behind me long ago.

After an endless journey in darkness, breathing in stale air that made our eyes sting, we reached the large chambers beneath the mountain. And there we waited, sitting huddled on the floor and smelling the stink of each others' fear. You _can _smell fear on others; something in the sweat. It was stifling there. To get away from it, I climbed upward, following a long system of ladders through vertical tunnels. They led me to a place where I could squeeze out a hole in the rock little bigger than a dinner plate. An adult would not have been able to fit; I was fortunate to be so small and slight at that age.

I crawled into daylight, squinting and rubbing the dust from my eyes, and found myself on a narrow ledge on the cliff face. It was very high; I'd climbed a long ways. But I quickly forgot any fear of vertigo once my eyes adjusted to the brightness.

I could _see _it. The demon. It was enormous; taller than our buildings. Red and raw and powerful, _chakra _bleeding off it into the air like flames. A chilling autumn wind swept against the mountainside, but I rose shakily into a standing position. Buildings were falling. Trees were cracking and snapping away from the massive tails like matchsticks. Everywhere---in Konoha and in the forests beyond---there were screams of agony and shouts of encouragement; flares of _jutsu _and bodies tossed carelessly like pebbles, broken and flung from claws and razor-iron jaw as it snarled and wheeled about. Its destruction knew no direction. When anything is that powerful, there is no _need _for reason, nor for fear. The Kyuubi's massive tails swept to and fro, bruising the land and beating a path further toward the main walls of the village. The adults I knew were there somewhere. They were ants beneath its feet. From the distance at which I watched, they were ants to _me. _I couldn't hear the roar of crumbling stone, the shriek of bending metal, the thunder of each terrible footfall. But I knew that this thing would kill and kill and kill until we were all mashed lumps of flesh, smeared across the rubble. I knew it instinctively. And for the first time, I felt true terror.

A trickle of warmth down one of my legs. Body shaking so badly I would've fallen if I weren't rooted to the spot. Heart a rapid tattoo against my ribs. Breath an uneven pattern of short, sharp exhalations and hisses.

A word came to me then. _Beautiful. _I have never thought anything beautiful since.

The demon's power; my raw fear . . . in that strange moment there didn't seem to be any difference between the two. We both saw the village falling, and the warriors scurrying like ants, from a view high above what forces Konoha could muster to drive it back. It was like I was seeing it all through the beast's crimson eyes.

I could not see it, but my own eyes had gone crimson with the gleam of the Sharingan.

"ITACHI!" someone shouted. Behind me. A hand grasping my ankle firmly. "GET THE HELL BACK HERE! DO YOU _WANT _TO DIE?"

I recognized the voice. And I looked away from the panorama of destruction before me, breaking the spell.

"I don't want to die," I replied, in a tight, strained voice that sounded very little like my own, let alone like a child's. Obediently I crouched down and pushed my way back through the hole. I had only gotten halfway through when rough arms pulled me the rest of the way. I had scraped myself on the rock and it hurt; there was a smear of blood across one cheek. But I soon found my faced pressed against Shisui's chest, so tightly I almost couldn't breathe. It was part relieved embrace and part punishment; he might've cracked my ribs.

"Don't get lost again, you little shit," he snarled down at the top of my head.

Then his grip on me loosened so that he was only steadying me against him on the ladder, and we began our descent to rejoin the others.

I smiled a little in the darkness. It was good he didn't see me smile, because he might have punched me in the face for it. No one ever called me names to my face, because I was too special a child to deserve that. But to Shisui, that day in the tunnel and thereafter, I was a brat who needed a keeper. Yes, I believe I did love him. And I started loving him for that.

I didn't know then, or for many years, though, that love was a tool to be used.

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**OoO OoO OoO**

The war ended. The Kyuubi was vanquished---sealed into the belly of a very stupid child, but I knew nothing of that at the time.

The Fourth Hokage, the most powerful man in Konoha, was dead. I stood with my clan at the funeral, beside my father. I cried for the Yondaime, though it was more out of confusion than grief for loss of him. He had seemed so strong to me. I had thought he might live forever. I had thought that the ideals they drummed into our head---protecting with our lives---would somehow keep us all from dying in the battles we fought by giving us strength of our own. But he was dead.

My father stood beside me, tall and dark and grim, and he didn't weep. He was too raw with grief to bear it openly. He only laid a hand on my head, and again it was heavy and I wanted to shake it off. Then he looked down at me. I will never forget how he looked, even now that he's dead and long rotten in the ground.

He wore a long black cloak emblazoned with the Uchiha crest, fluttering around him like dark wings. There was a scar across his brow, puckered and ugly with stitches. But that was not what made my breath catch in my throat. His squared jaw, his furrowed brow, his eyes that had once looked softly on me grown cold and purposeful.

In the battle, the Uchiha had been sent to the front lines to face down the demon's threat. My uncle---my father's brother; the head of our clan---had been killed. This meant two things: the first, that my father was now essentially the leader of the Uchiha. The second, that I was now the heir apparent to his position. In his eyes, in that moment at the funeral, I became _his heir_ and not _his Itachi_. It was as if his eyes were automatically aging me to manhood, disciplining me to power so that I might lead in his stead one day. He knew I had engaged the Sharingan _dojutsu _for the first time, when I was watching the battle from the mountainside. Shisui had seen it, and told him. And now I was not a child in his eyes. It was _that genius_ that he saw. His prodigy.

I, too changed in that moment. I thought, _'Chichi-ue, I promise to become powerful.'_

And I stopped asking why.

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**END OF CHAPTER 1**

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_Yamisui: Well. This is quite a departure from my usual style. Quite a bit more cerebral. Hope you're all still awake. Because it only gets more and more disturbing from here. _

_As an interesting side-note, Einstein didn't learn to speak until he was three . . . and he gave us the physics that eventually led to the development of the atomic bomb._


	2. Chuunin

**OoO SCARLET OoO**

**OoO OoO Chapter 2: Chuunin OoO OoO**

Life changed after the day of the Yondaime's funeral. I hadn't been in the Academy for much more than a year when my father told me that I'd learned everything there was to learn in school. Whatever part of my childhood was lost when the fourth Hokage died, I still had a child's naivety, and had no real idea whether I really _had _learned everything. Certainly I knew I wasn't an adult yet. But I also thought I might like it better if I could get out of the classes where everyone hated me for doing well. That was why I never spoke up and told my father how I felt. I trusted him to know what was best.

I was only six, but he began to push my teachers to give me the graduation exam prematurely. Unlike the question of my enrollment a year before, this request was flatly denied. My teachers kept repeating that I wasn't ready.

My father kept repeating that I was.

"You graduated the White Fang's son when he was _six_!" he argued heatedly. "_Six! _My child is every bit the talent he was and more!"

There was a pause, and the Chuunin instructors sitting behind their long panel conferred.

"Those were extenuating circumstances," one of them finally told my father, folding his hands composedly in front of him. "Circumstances not excluding the boy's innate genius. Private circumstances, which it would not be proper for us to discuss in this forum."

"You toss the word genius around so easily, and yet you say my child does not compare to that boy?" my father retorted.

I watched the debates fly between them like knives.

Afterward, I asked him, "_Chichi-ue, _who is the White Fang's son?"

"A thief," he replied, "whose very abilities mock the blood of our dead." Then my father grew stern and tight-lipped, and he would speak no further of it.

Of course, he'd neglected to mention to my teachers the circumstances of my activation of the Sharingan---that I'd done it involuntarily and wouldn't have _known_ I'd done it if Shisui hadn't told me. Privately, he began to instruct me. He would order me to sit facing him in a room by ourselves.

"Look at me, Itachi," he said. "No, not like that. I don't want you to _see _me the way you normally do. Imagine that I'm an enemy, and that you're going to have to fight me with all your strength. That's how you must look at me."

I stared at him hard. I performed this exercise for hours, to no avail. My eyes stayed black.

And I stayed in the Academy.

My father wouldn't tell me what my teachers said about me during his last attempts---about _why_ I wasn't ready---but his frustration communicated itself to me, and as a result I worked myself to exhaustion trying to excel at everything I did in school. My grades were perfect. My techniques were flawless. I was the best in my class, except for Shisui, who was still stronger. But my _dojutsu _remained dormant.

"You aren't _focusing, _Itachi!" My father's fist pounded the table between us, rattling the two cups of tea my mother had brought us. I'd temporarily slipped into a daze; I could hear my little brother crying in the other room, and the soft strains of my mother singing. The sounds seemed a world away from where I was.

My father's tea spilled, and immediately I reached over and righted it before its contents could trickle off the table and onto the floor. "Leave it," he said sharply, even though I'd already fixed it. "If you don't put all your heart and all your soul into a goal then you will always fall short."

"_Chichi-ue, _I'm tired," I complained. It was a moment of weakness; I'd been training unusually hard that day on a _taijutsu _move Shisui was teaching me, and had pushed my young body too far. I was hitting a growth spurt then, and my bones ached. A little of the tea had burned my hand.

"Good," was his reply. "The greatest goals require sacrifice. Don't ever forget that, Itachi. _No power without a price; no strength without cost_." It was an old _shinobi _saying.

I never forgot it.

We trained long into the night, until I literally collapsed. My father carried me to bed.

A year passed like this. Shisui felt sorry for me, I think. Especially since he'd been the one to start it all by reporting my Sharingan episode. That was why he took the time to train with me, even when he himself was worn to the bone. And he was even gruffer with me, because he didn't want me to know he pitied me.

One time he found me sitting outside my house on the porch, all by myself. It was late at night, and even my father was asleep.

"Itachi, what're you doing up?" he demanded, squatting down in front of the stoop to look me in the eye. His bangs flopped across his eyes, and he blew hard with his mouth to push them back. "_Pffh_. Don't tell me you're running away; you pack too light." He nodded toward the knapsack next to my legs on the steps. It wasn't very full.

Without a word I emptied the sack on the porch to show him what I'd brought. A dozen _kunai _clattered to the wood, ringing off each other where they collided. We both stared at them in silence for a minute.

"I can't sleep," I finally explained. "I'm going to train."

He sighed, slouching back on his heels until his rear end rested on the ground. The next thing I knew, he was twiddling a _kunai _by the handle between his middle and index fingers. He'd moved so swiftly I hadn't even seen the blur his arm became when he took it. I stared at the weapon in his hand, mesmerized.

"I can't wait to be able to do that," I murmured wistfully.

Shisui sighed again and stood up, pocketing the _kunai. _"I have a better idea. Come with me. I'll show you something good."

I gathered all my _kunai _into the sack and stuffed it under the porch. Then I followed him away from the house. In those days I trusted Shisui without fail. He always knew what I'd like best, even when _I _didn't know what I wanted.

We walked together down the wide streets of the Uchiha compound under a gentle half-moon. The place was near to empty, for most of those in my clan worked hard and retired early. The only person who was awake to see us was one of my distant cousins, Yuu---a forty-year-old drunk who always sat quietly at the bar stand he frequented late at night. He'd been that way since he lost his son, which was only a few months before the Kyuubi's attack. He watched Shisui and I pass without a word. His eyes were watery and rimmed with a red that had nothing to do with the Sharingan.

No one stopped us from going on our way. Other times, the few who did see us saw no need. They all trusted Shisui with me; for all his rough edges he was well-liked.

That night Shisui took me to a bridge, which spanned the part of the river's course that ran through the Uchiha compound. We jumped up onto the stone wall on one side of the bridge and stood there, gazing down at the water. It sparkled with fragments of the moon.

"Are we going to swim?" I asked, pointing downward.

Shisui gave a short, barking laugh---a laugh I liked because it was full of boyish arrogance but at the same time it meant he had something really interesting in mind.

"I'm not here to swim," he declared, throwing his head back proudly. "But _you_ may end up swimming at first, so prepare yourself."

"What do I do?" I asked, trusting him.

"Follow me," he said simply. And he jumped.

He landed on his feet atop the water, with only the softest of splashes. My mouth fell open. This was something I'd seen adults do, and some of the teenagers, but he was still a Genin. He looked up at me and grinned, then hopped gently up and down a few times as if springing on a mattress. Then he pointed up at my feet.

"C'mon, Itachi. It's easy. You just draw _chakra _into the soles, and pretty soon you don't even have to think about it! It's like running down the street."

And he started to run. Not far; he was just jogging, really. But I was suddenly struck with fear that he was going to run away.

Well . . . that wasn't precisely it. It was it felt like he was going to leave me behind. I didn't want to be a little boy, standing on a bridge by myself in the middle of the night, just because I was too small and too unskilled to follow him. That was why I jumped.

I landed with a raucous splash and sank a good four feet. But I didn't try to swim, even though instinct compelled me to. I held my breath, gathering _chakra _into my feet like he'd instructed.

I never did find out if gathering _chakra _in your feet underwater could have made me rise to the surface. The next thing I knew, a pair of thin, wiry hands hauled me upward. He'd grabbed me by the hair with one hand and by the arm with the other, and I let out a gasp as I was hauled back into the cold night air.

"Ow!" I sputtered, clawing at the hand gripping my hair. "Put me down!"

Shisui set me down, letting go of my hair.

"How dumb can you _get_?" he railed at me. "You're supposed to summon the _chakra _into your feet _before _you jump, not _after_! And if you fall in water, every idiot knows you're supposed to swimto the _surface, _not try and finish the damn _jutsu _while you _sink_!"

My eyes had teared up from the pain, but Shisui misinterpreted it.

"Hell, I didn't bring you just to stand there and blubber," he grumbled, scratching at the back of his head, which he always did when he realized he'd been too harsh with me. "And you _are _standing, by the way. Look down."

I looked down, blinking in surprise. I was. I'd still had _chakra _concentrated in my feet when he pulled me up, and now my feet were resting comfortably on top of the water, as if I were standing on thick carpet. I jumped up and down, experimenting, and found I no longer sank.

"You did it," Shisui murmured, but there was the faintest shadow of a false note in his praise that I didn't fail to miss. I always learned more about what people were really thinking by what they _didn't _say than by what they _said. _Tall and lanky and beginning to be fine-looking, staring down at a slight little brat a head shorter than he was---even with these differences between us, even when he had the upper hand, Shisui was a little jealous. I think he'd secretly hoped I would fail many times at first, so he could teach me.

In that sense, I suppose, love is just another form of power struggle.

I didn't hate him for his jealousy, though. In a way, I owed my swift mastery of water-walking to Shisui because he'd pulled me out of the water.

"Let's race now," I told him. I was cold and wet, and keen on plunging right into practical use of my new _jutsu. _

The shadow faded from his face, and he smirked. "You know you can't keep up with me, Itachi."

"Not _yet_," I countered. "I'll grow long legs like yours."

Shisui pulled a swift about-face and took off running.

"Ha! You're a hundred years too early, Itachi!" he called as he went, voice trailing behind him like the wind. "Just _try _and beat me!"

Pressing my lips together in determination, I sped after him. Until the moon set, he and I went careening through Konoha's canals, kicking up runnels of water in our wake. I never did beat him, but I believe he did slow down because he didn't want to lose me.

**OoO OoO OoO**

By the time I'd reached the age of seven, I was still enrolled in the Academy, and my father had given up on an early graduation in disgust.

"But it's alright, Itachi," he told me one day over dinner. "I know it's not because you're behind. In the meantime, we'll play to your strengths."

I had no idea what he meant by this, but I was always willing to learn. The next morning, a weekend, he took me down to the lake behind our house before the sun had risen. There was a long wooden dock there and nothing else. No boat. No trees, either. I swiftly learned why this was so. My father formed a quick series of seals with his fingers, then quietly named the technique. He inhaled deeply and blew. The next thing I knew, the soft blue shadows of pre-dawn were banished by a great wall of flame, hurtling across the air over the lake. My eyes grew very large, even though it was like looking at the sun. I froze.

When at last it had dispelled, my father turned and looked down at me. His eyes narrowed briefly. "It's not something to fear, Itachi," he told me. "It is the fire technique, _Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu. _A precursor to even greater _jutsu, _which like the Sharingan are the pride of our clan."

"I want to learn," I breathed. His expression softened, and he actually smiled. "That's my child," he said.

The Sharingan lessons stopped. I think this was largely due to an argument he'd had with my mother the prior week, which she'd won. She told him I wasn't eating enough, and there were shadows under my eyes. She told him a boy should not have shadows under his eyes. My father relented. He did love me, after all. It was just buried under layers of duty and responsibility, like skin under scar tissue. It was not an easy time to be head of the Uchiha.

The village was in the process of being rebuilt after the Kyuubi disaster. The Hokage was dead. The elder Sandaime had been pressed upon to come out of retirement and resume his position. I didn't care much who took the place of the Fourth---I had stopped caring after he died. The Third, I learned ten years later, died in much the same way, which didn't surprise me. The Fourth had to have learned the folly of throwing his life away from someone; presumably it was from his _Sensei. _

The Uchiha had suffered heavy losses in numbers---many sons and fathers, who were our mainstays because the women could not activate the Sharingan. As I said before, the Uchiha were sent to the front lines. We were more expendable than the Hyuuga, because we'd been bred to be expendable. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Needless to say, my father had his hands full managing Konoha's policing forces. It was no real fault of his that he never knew what was really going on in my head.

I think he began our early morning training sessions because he felt guilty about not having time for his family. I didn't care one way or the other, really. But I was happy, because I was growing stronger every day. And I was beginning to wonder where all this was leading. After all, I couldn't just keep getting stronger forever. There had to be an end to these means. Otherwise, what was the point?

My thin arms grew taut with muscle. I lost what baby fat I'd had left and took on a lean, wiry look that wasn't very pleasing to the eye.

"You're starting to look a lot like your cousin," my mother remarked one day over breakfast. "Lanky. And your hair---how can you see through that?" My hair had grown shaggy and unkempt because I was always out the door for training before she could get a proper look at me. "Come here, Itachi," she ordered. "I'll cut your bangs."

She took her time doing so, chatting pleasant motherly things that are half-advice and half affectionate fussing. She told me I mustn't take my father's sternness toward me so seriously. She told me I needed to eat more because my cheeks were getting hollow. She told me I ought to take a day off from training once in a while to spend time with my brother. As if he knew what she was admonishing, Sasuke toddled over to me while she moved around to trim the hair on the back of my head. He was not quite two years old, but already he had a thick head of black Uchiha hair and bright black eyes. He reached stubby arms toward me, saying, "Ah, ah, Chi."

"He wants in your lap," my mother translated.

I let him climb into my lap, looking down at him while my mother's gentle hands trimmed the hair at the nape of my neck. He turned around and settled in with his warm back cradled against my chest, as if he belonged there. It was strange to me that such a small, soft creature would want to be close to me like this. It felt like he would break if I weren't careful. It made me nervous, having him trust me that much.

Another year rolled by. I took none of my mother's advice to heart.

And I got into my first fight.

I don't know how anyone found out my teachers were actually beginning to give consideration to graduating me. _I _didn't even know about it. They were watching me closely, those days, my teachers. Only I never realized _how _close until I'd made what could have been the greatest mistake of my life.

You didn't speak to the Hyuuga unless they spoke to you. They were aloof and haughty, though the village treated them like hothouse plants and they were rarely sent on the more dangerous missions. Their children were quiet, arrogant brats with the power to stop your heart in one strike of the hand. They were even more admired than the Uchiha, but not as popular because they were so unapproachable.

That day, one of them approached me.

"You're the one they call _genius, _aren't you?" he asked me in cold, clipped tones. I won't do him the honor of mentioning his name, because he certainly never mentioned _mine_. That would have been too much of an acknowledgement of someone as lowly as I.

"I'm Uchiha Itachi," I replied tensely.

"I can _see _you're an Uchiha; you've no need to announce it," he snapped. He was a head taller than me, and though pale his body had the hard look of ice---the sort of glacial ice that can be struck but not easily shattered. Like all the Hyuuga, he had pale eyes and dark hair, but unlike the others he wore his hair cropped short. I knew this was a sign of mourning---I'd seen it on my own clan members after the Kyuubi's attack. We stood there a moment, taking the measure of each other. Then he nodded as if he'd confirmed something.

"Follow me," he said.

We went around the back of the school building, to the ranges where we trained for _taijutsu. _There were rows and rows of wood boards, pockmarked with _kunai _holes. There was a clearing beyond the range dotted with trees and bushes, for basic stealth and evasion techniques. I followed the Hyuuga boy into the alley of the range.

There was no need for him to tell me what he wanted. But while he was burning with an anger so cold I could almost see the white flames dancing off him, I felt . . . nothing. It was a curious thing. I'd had many teachers; I followed him now because I was curious to see what he could teach me.

He struck the first blow. He rushed at me with cold fury, crossing both arms over his chest in what I thought was preparation for a series of punching moves we'd recently learned in _taijutsu _class. I prepared to block.

Then he uncurled his fists, and I realized what he was _actually_ doing only as the two _kunai _sang past my face, scratching my brow on one side and my cheek on the other. Even then, I was so surprised I didn't move until I felt the first sting, and the first blood droplet bead on my temple. Until he was already drawing more _kunai _from his holster.

An ordinary child might have remained frozen in shock, demanded to know why this was happening. I was not an ordinary child. And I pushed the fear aside, understanding that he was not doing this to kill me, but to humiliate me. He was jealous. Also, I don't know what loss he'd suffered, but grief has a way of distorting emotions, skewing reason.

I didn't understand grief at that point, and I harbored no compassion for him. My thoughts became focused on the _here _and _now_---I cared nothing for what he was feeling, and neither did I stop to wonder at the fact that I felt no fear. I was a scene from a play, directed by instinct.

_I'm not armed. He means to kill me. I must run, assess, strike from behind a shield . . ._

I was off in a flash. He laughed as I fled. Didn't even chase me as I darted behind one of the target walls. Didn't see that my pretense at stumbling was actually what bought me time to catch up the two _kunai _he'd thrown in a perfect, swift sleight of hand. Shisui's training; I'd finally mastered that one.

"You can't win, _Uchiha_!" he called, practically spitting out my clan name. "It's not in your blood."

Even as I began to formulate a strategy for action, I also thought that this was an odd thing for him to say.

"What do you mean by that?" I called back. _I have two kunai. If I throw both at once, I'll have no kunai again and have to go out into the open to get them. _

He was walking slowly toward the target wall behind which I hid.

"The Uchiha were supposed to be stronger to us," he replied in a low voice. "But instead you fell _short._" As he said the word _short, _he flung one of his _kunai. _It struck the wood target at head level with such impact that the point sank through. I could see it glint on my side of the wall.

I could not make heads or tails of his meaning, but I decided that trying to figure out the meaning was stupid and pointless. Reason had no place here.

"_BYAKUUGAN!" _he shouted. My body tensed. I knew what that was, but I hadn't ever seen it before. "I can see you," he said, in quieter tones. He was approaching the target. I saw the sunlight between the slats of wood blocked as he laid a hand on it. He could see me like the wood wasn't even there. It was like he was touching me.

Instinctively, I backed away. But there wasn't far to go in that direction.

He drew in a deep, shaky breath. He wrenched the _kunai _from the target. He said to me, "You're going to pay for what I've lost." He said this without a single break in his voice, in the even tones of the mad.

I knew as soon as he took back the knife that he was going to come for me. That was when I ran.

There was nothing spectacular about that fight, I suppose. It was more of a chase, really. But I wasn't running with no reason. I recalled something my father had told me: _Always look for the advantage. It's there. And it won't present itself to you; you must reach out and take it. Sacrifice for it. _

There's always a price.

I paid with my pride, running away from my first enemy. But what I bought with my pride was the advantage. I lured him into the clearing, and then beyond that into the trees. There I vanished from view.

He didn't know the art of the Gentle Fist, fortunately, because I might have been killed that day. But he _was _deadly quick with his hands and, consequentially, his _kunai. _His searchlight eyes swung this way and that as he stalked me through the forest. He didn't see me until he finally looked up, standing beneath the branch below which I was perched. With _chakra _gathered in my feet, I stood upside down. I aimed my _kunai _straight for his throat and threw.

The clash of metal on metal rang through the forest. Materializing as if out of nowhere, one of the Academy had appeared between the Hyuuga boy and my knife. He had raised his own _kunai _in time to block mine, and he was looking straight at me. I stared down at him, frozen. He wasn't one of _my_ teachers, but I'd seen him before. An Uchiha. His eyes upon me were cold and searching.

"Uchiha Itachi," he said. "Come with me."

I began walking down the tree trunk at a calm pace. The Hyuuga boy watched me with a deep frown; I doubted he could do what I was doing---the tree-walking, that is. I wanted him to watch me. Once I was level with the ground, I intended to walk past him as if I didn't see him. Because he didn't see _me. _

_You only see That Genius. Well, I don't see YOU then. I REFUSE to see you._

I intended to walk down the tree trunk and step onto the grass. Instead, the world reeled and went dark.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I woke up again in bed, at home. I could hear shouting from another room. Which one, I couldn't tell. Our house had thick walls. I was alone. Slowly, I sat up. My head hurt a little, and my fingers' exploration of it told me that there was a small square of gauze taped over one eyebrow and part of my temple. There was another, even smaller strip on my other cheek. Carefully, I swung my legs over the side of my bed and stood. Everything seemed to work. Quietly, I opened my door and crept down the hall.

They were in the receiving room, my father and the school administrators.

"I can't believe," he said, in a low voice, "that it took _this _to open your eyes."

"As I've said, we're doing this on the condition that Setsuna-_sensei _takes the boy on. We want him watched."

A brusque, huffing noise. My father, impatient to be off that topic. "You'll find him beyond reproof. He's not to blame for who's jealous of him."

Quiet. My mother's voice, murmuring something. My father sighed.

"It's agreed, then," said another voice---a man's; smooth and grave. "I'll look after him well, Cousin." A pause. "A genius like him doesn't belong at the Academy with children, anyway."

"And the Hyuuga?" My father's voice, angry again.

I didn't want to hear more. I suddenly felt dizzy, and a little sick. And I felt a tugging at my pants leg.

"'_Nii-san?" _

Turning and looking down, I saw Sasuke standing there, looking up at me with wide eyes.

"'_Nii-san, _why is _'Tou-san _yelling? Is it 'cause you're hurt?"

I don't know if I wished that was the reason or not. I didn't like to be fussed over. But perhaps it was the genius they were discussing. Those days I couldn't be sure anymore.

I forced a smile and took his little hand, leading him away from the hall. "Go to your bed and sleep," I told him.

He hesitated, standing in the doorway of his room. Looked back at me. "_'Nii-san, _sleep too. You'll get better, and be strong again."

I turned on my heel and went back to my room without answering him. I did sleep, though. For two days. As if my body were trying to answer my mind's wish to sleep forever.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I healed, of course. The Hyuuga's _kunai _had chipped my skull, giving me a concussion, but it wasn't anything permanent. And as soon as I'd made a full recovery, I found myself officially graduated and already assigned a Genin team. The other two were boys---the son of a medical ninja, and a son of the Aburame clan. Our leader was the Jounin Uchiha Setsuna, my father's cousin. He had personally offered to quit his position at the school to be my _sensei_.

I flourished under his instruction, of course. He was brilliant. A tall, grave man who smiled rarely, and when he did it never reached his eyes. A genius, who was drawn to geniuses. I didn't like him. Out of all my team members, I really only got along with Aburame Akito.The other onewatched me too closely. I never trusted him.

Several months passed. We trained; we executed menial missions. Then a Chuunin exam was hosted in Konoha.

My team, though not bound by anything that could be called ties of friendship, made it through the Forest of Death easily. Other teams weren't so fortunate; there were only three teams left to compete in the finals afterward. The Hyuuga who hated me was among them. We were paired, and sent into the arena.

Since I had last faced him, I had not only become quicker but gained two very important techniques: _Ryuuka no Jutsu, _and its successor, _Karyuu Endan. _

He had learned the art of the Gentle Fist, and others as well, and tried to engage me in close combat. I let him strike me, with the intent of entangling him in wires of _chakra _strung out from my fingers. When I fell he backed off a little, gloating. He told me that it was the fate of the weak to die. But I rose to my feet and sprang my trap. The wires around his neck tightened like a garrote. The maneuver stunned him at first; his eyes bulged, and blood began to trickle from his throat. Before he could even react swiftly enough to sever the wires with _chakra _points on his own hands, I inhaled deeply and breathed fire. It went roiling along the lengths of the wires, to his head.

His face melted.

He was thrashing, smothering on his own melting skin. Dimly, I was aware of the Jounin overseeing the match calling frantically for medical ninja to attend, and for me to let go of the wires. I did. My enemy fell. I stood there as if in a dream, watching the blaze die and disperse into the air, smelling the sweet sickening scent of burning flesh. I didn't know what to feel. The crowd above was utterly silent, transfixed with horror. I wanted to vomit, but I didn't. I swallowed hard, forcing myself to watch. I had done this; it was only fitting that I suffer through watching it to its completion. I think, in the end, Setsuna-_sensei _had to force me to leave the field, so they could . . . clean up for the next match.

My eyes were red with the Sharingan, and it was not until I was gone from the field that they returned to normal. Later that night, alone in my room, I looked at my reflection in my window and was able to summon the Sharingan again, at will. The Hyuuga boy had been right, and I had indeed learned something from him: _It is the fate of the weak to die. _And as I looked at myself in the window, I fingered the scars on my face and smiled faintly. I knew, then. He had died because I was more powerful. All along, I'd hated him more.

**OoO OoO OoO**

They would not name me Chuunin. Out of my team, only Akito passed. I began to see less and less of my home and of Shisui, for despite the fact that I hadn't made next rank requests were pouring in for my team's services. I might have horrified the crowd watching my match, but they certainly had faith in my abilities.

My Sharingan talents, as if making up for lost time, blossomed quickly. My father was proud. He wanted me to take over his position, after all, and I'd proven myself in his eyes even if I wasn't a Chuunin.

"You know, Itachi-_kun_," Kabuto told me once, "the Sandaime is the one opposing your promotion to Chuunin."

I frowned, bemused by this. I was strong, wasn't I? What else was there to prove?

Kabuto answered my unasked question slyly: "Maybe he's afraid of you. People always want to hold back what they don't understand." He had meant to goad me then; I wasn't naive enough to be without suspicion. I said nothing in reply.

I threw myself into missions. But I was beginning to doubt. If strength wasn't enough for those who watched me, judged me . . . then why was I becoming stronger? It seemed pointless. I had no goal to set, though everyone commended me for what I did because I did it well.

Of course, a boy grasping desperately about for reason eventually finds it, doesn't he? It just isn't always the answer everyone wishes he would find.

When I was ten, there came a contract for a mission that was to change the course of my life. I was to go with Setsuna-_sensei _and Kabuto to one of the bordering fiefdoms of the Fire Country, to assassinate a feudal lord. That was where I met Orochimaru.

**END OF CHAPTER 2**

_Yamisui: For those of you still reading, have no fear. I'm not going to screw up the canon---everything that happens next should logically fit. Stay tuned for Scarlet Chapter 3: ANBU. _


	3. Assassin

**OoO SCARLET OoO**

**OoO OoO Chapter 3: Assassin OoO OoO**

It was a bold mission. A dangerous mission. Even my father was opposed to it.

"I want him here to work with _me_," he argued, and I could see the hands resting composedly in his lap wanted very much to clench into fists.

I knelt beside him in the receiving room. I'd come to hate that room; whenever I was summoned to it I was always the prodigy, the potential, the object in question. But that night I could see the worry in the lines of my father's face, and knew from what he wasn't saying that he was speaking of _me _and not the other. My heart thawed a little.

"You are the one holding him back, Cousin," Setsuna countered. My Senseiwas an austere man, thin faced and tall, with streaks of white in his close-cropped hair. He was older than my father, and more cynical. But he was a shrewd man. And he was right.

I tilted my head to one side, staring quizzically at Setsuna as I waited for my father to explain his reasoning.

"What is it you fear he will do, Cousin?" my Senseiasked when my father kept silent. "He's your son, of whom you're proud. He is being offered a great opportunity to prove himself not just to the Village, but to the Fire Country lords."

And my father looked down at me kneeling beside him, just as he had looked down at me on the day of the Fourth Hokage's funeral. Only this time, there was something new in his eyes. The lines in his face deepened. What I saw there shocked me so much that I couldn't speak. I could scarcely breathe.

He was afraid for me. Deeply so.

"Itachi is only ten years old, but he has already killed," he said, turning away from me abruptly to hide his fear. "Fairly, honorably, justly, in battle. And of that I am proud." I knew he was referring to the Hyuuga boy I had fought in the Chuunin exam arena. He didn't sound as proud as he'd been before. "But this . . ." he went on. "To slit a man's throat in dead of night, with blood cool as steel . . ." He looked at Setsuna for a moment as if he hated him. "My son is not ready."

Setsuna's retort came like a whiplash. "Why are we _born_, Cousin? Tell me!" Then he answered his own question. "_Shinobi _are born to kill. Whatever the reason---protection, offense, malice, revenge---it is still called killing. If you wish to view death as a taint, then your son is already tainted. Stop trying to bind him to the clan to keep him naïve."

My father pounded the floor with his fist. The wood cracked a little. "My son's _duty_ is to the clan! Itachi is to follow the path to leadership!" His temper had ignited. "His genius belongs to the clan! He is _already_ strong and sharp of mind. He is _already _cold _enough_ without clearing this hurtle you wish to set before him!" There my father stopped, realizing what he'd just said in front of me.

Setsuna's eyes flickered; even he was shocked, and for a moment he looked at me pityingly. But his next words were cruel. "That's what's holding him back, Cousin. And it has nothing to do with killing. In the Academy, I heard much about the case the instructors used to keep him from early graduation. In the Chuunin exam judging, do you know what they told me? Itachi's behavior is solitary and ruthless. He has not forged any bonds through teamwork. It is through _missions, _Cousin, that he will learn leadership, for to be a leader one must first know how to form bonds with others. You can't give him that by forcing him to stay in your shadow."

Setsuna was not a kind man, but he was an honest one. And once again, he was right.

"I want to go, _Chichi-ue,_" I volunteered. My tone was firm, and my gaze unwavering as I looked up at him. "Setsuna-_sensei _will not allow harm to befall me." A pause. "I can't lead if I remain a Genin forever."

And my father folded. The reasoning against him was near to flawless, even though in his gut he sensed pending danger.

Plans were laid. Setsuna-_sensei _left. I rose to leave as well.

"Your eyes are an adult's," my father said quietly. I turned. He was still kneeling on the floor. "You've become old before your time, and with what you plan to go and do you will no doubt become even older." His gaze was grave and heavy as a hand resting atop my head. "I'm sorry, Itachi."

I was well aware that he was apologizing for many things besides the mission and the cruel words he'd let slip.

"Don't be," I replied, shaping my lips into a smile to make him happy. "I'm just an old soul." _I forgive you for your cruelty, Chichi-ue, but I am what I've become. If you want me to forgive you for that, you're too late. _

**OoO OoO OoO**

The night before I left, while I lay awake in my bed staring at the ceiling, I heard the soft noise of feet moving down the hall. Then there came an even softer tapping on my door. Really, he would soon enter the Academy; he ought to have been stealthier. But I whispered, "Come in, Sasuke."

He slid open the wood panel and stood there in the doorway rubbing his eyes with one fist. He was five.

"'_Nii-san, _I had a bad dream," he mumbled.

I sat up cross-legged in bed, flinging off the covers. It was too warm for them, anyway. "A nightmare? What do you expect _me _to do about it?"

He walked a little further into the room, looking miserable. "There was a ghost in my room," he insisted. His eyes were huge.

"All right." I sighed; it was obvious he wasn't going to leave me in peace anytime soon. "You can sleep in here. But you are _not _to make noise. I leave very early in the morning."

He climbed in with me and immediately claimed the middle for his space. This left me with just the edge, and my back pressed against his. But Sasuke obeyed me and kept quiet, and eventually his breath evened out into the slow measure of sleep. Meanwhile, my thoughts cycled back to what I'd been pondering before he came.

_I'm going to kill a man. But this isn't going to be a battle. It won't be 'him or me,' like it was in the arena. It will just be . . . him. _

I wondered how we would be expected to do it.

_Poison? A knife across the throat, in the dark? _

_In front of his own children?_

It was a horrid dichotomy of awareness, mulling over something like that while I could feel the gentle rising and falling of my brother's back against my own. I hated that feeling; it made me want to pretend Sasuke wasn't lying there---that I was alone. And it made me sick to my stomach at the same time, because I knew the small, warm person who lay dreaming beside me was my brother, who loved me even though he knew nothing of what was in my head.

In the dark hours before dawn, when the shadows were still lightening from indigo to blue, I slid away from that warmth and comfort. I lifted my pack full of honed _kunai _and _shuriken, _careful not to let them clink against each other lest Sasuke hear and wake. And I slipped out into the quiet streets without bidding anyone farewell.

Inhaling the brisk autumn chill outside sharpened my awareness. Alone, I didn't have to think about difficult things like the love I didn't feel, or about where my strength was leading me. There was only the mission ahead.

If you empty yourself of everything, killing is easy.

**OoO OoO OoO**

The journey to the location of our target was not as easy as I'd expected. Lord Gyoichi was an old man whose lands bordered the northernmost part of the Fire Country. These lands were a patchwork of rice paddies where cultivated and stinking marshes where left fallow. We were forced to travel through the latter, because keeping to the roads would expose us to Gyoichi's spies.

Kabuto either knew more about the situation we were heading into than Setsuna-_sensei_ did, or Setsuna was just keeping quiet to let him do all the work explaining. Regardless, I listened to my teammate expound on the mission profile with interest. Kabuto was the sort who watched everything intently and rarely opened his mouth without good reason.

"Like most tyrants everyone wishes would die, Gyoichi-_sama _is seventy years old and still in the best of health," he told me, as we waded waist-deep through brackish water and reeds higher than our heads. "He has overstepped his bounds once too many times, 'appropriating' lands that don't belong to him, squandering their resources, and then leaving their residents to starve. But do you know what I think, Itachi-_kun_? I think killing him isn't going to solve anything."

On Kabuto's other side, Aburame Akito sloshed through the fen in silence, ignoring us both. Our teammate, whom we had not expected to be available to come with us, had returned early from his previous mission and now found himself traveling in our company. He obviously wasn't happy about being called away again so soon. He was fourteen and he had a girlfriend.

Emboldened by the fact that he had an audience from me if not from Akito, Kabuto went on to say, "The problem with land disputes is that this country is run by feudal lords, who are greedy. When Gyoichi is dead, one just as bad will take his place. He has a son who will soon be old enough to rule."

I mulled this over for a while. What I came up with in the end was probably the worst possible thing I could've said in front of my Sensei"The problem probably isn't that the feudal lords are corrupt; it's that they're ruling in the first place. They divide countries into even smaller parts, even though all the countries are already divided, making wars both inside _and_ beyond their borders." I paused, considering, and then went on, making it worse. "But even _that_ problem comes from another. Civilians don't know how to use power like _shinobi, _because the only power they have lies in land and wealth. They're greedy, and they make wars to get what they want. But once they get what they want, it only solves _their _problems and not their peoples'. They're like children who need a keeper."

"_Uchiha Itachi!_"

I shut my mouth.

Setsuna-_sensei _was glaring at me. "That is precisely the attitude that makes our kind hated and feared in some places. Arrogance like that is dangerous---dangerous to _have_, for it binds you with the illusion that having power makes you wise. We are not superior to those we're obligated to protect."

I had no answer to that. Yet.

But Kabuto said softly, "Then why, when they've a dire need to be saved from themselves, do they summon _us_?"

"_Shinobi _are a grand mistake," Setsuna said icily, returning his sharp gaze to the terrain ahead. "Without the focus of serving the needs of others, we would destroy each other. Ponder that, you two, whenever such stupid ideas arise in your heads. And don't waste the air I breathe by speaking of them again."

We reached Gyoichi's fortress that night. I wasn't the one who killed him; Setsuna-_sensei _did. But I saw him do it. And I learned something very unusual about him in the process.

It was to be done swiftly and quietly, and no one was to know Konoha had a hand in it. This meant no mark left on the body, for as hated as this lord was the slightest evidence would point to engineered assassination. Or, rather, no mark was to be left that would indicate professionals had done it. We were meant to make it appear to be murder.

Committed by the lord's own son.

Setsuna was to infiltrate the fortress first, together with Akito. Akito was essential for that because he could use his bugs to spy, and because Setsuna needed to conserve his strength for use of the Sharingan at the key moment. Then Akito was to send me a signal, and I was to join Setsuna while Kabuto and Akito provided diversions in two separate locations.

The infiltration was to last until nightfall. In the meantime, Kabuto and I had to spend the day hiding in the marsh. Crouching on low tree branches while surrounded by stinking, stagnant bog was something I could bear with stoicism. Kabuto, on the other hand, always brought out the worst in me.

"You're pretty powerful, aren't you, Itachi?" he remarked, squatting beside me on the branch. "Even training with you, I don't think I've seen everything you can do."

Mosquitoes whined around our heads, trying to find places to alight and stick their needles through the layers of mesh and cloth and bandages that we wore. I slapped at them, ignoring Kabuto.

But he was persistent. "Don't missions like this bore you?" he asked me.

This time I spared him a glance. "Missions are important. Even if they're boring, they're a means to an end. In case you didn't notice, neither of us has earned our Chuunin rank yet."

"I don't care what title they _call_ us by," Kabuto snapped. "I'm talking about what you can _do._" But I could tell he didcare. He'd been acting oddly ever since he failed the Chuunin exam, losing his temper on occasion, which wasn't something he normally did.

"_I _know what I can do," I told him curtly, to shut him up. "That's good enough."

I didn't want him questioning me further, or he'd discern that I'd been wondering the same thing all along.

Fortunately---or perhaps _un_fortunately, from the vast perspective of fate---Akito's signal came at that moment. A tiny winged beetle, circling repeatedly around us.

"Let's go," I told Kabuto, and together we jumped off the branch and made our way northward onto firmer ground. From there we were to follow the road to a small gate on the fortress' eastern side, where Akito's bugs had killed the guards in such a way that no attention was drawn to the attack.

The road led us up a hill, and would have led us directly down the other side to the gate if there hadn't been a man blocking the way. He was standing at the top of the hill, with his back to us and his hands clasped thoughtfully behind him. As soon as we saw him we took cover in the bushes alongside the road; if he saw us he might have alerted the castle. Then we moved with what must have been almost no sound or betraying glimpse.

But the man in the road addressed us before we could skirt round him. "You're here to join the other two within the fortress," he said loudly, without turning around. He wore soft gray robes and sandals stained with mud, and his long black hair hung down his back in greasy strings. However, for all his humble appearances he bore the air of a man in control of his situation. His back was straight, and his speech unhurried. And his words had not been a question.

Kabuto and I, sensing that this was not a man to be trifled with, leaped from our concealment to stand behind him on the road.

"Who are you?" Kabuto asked him. One hand slid surreptitiously into his _kunai _pouch.

"Two children," the man said, without turning around. "You're both young. Genin, I don't doubt, given the rash way you address me. But I almost didn't notice you, so you must be skilled; you must be nearing Chuunin rank. Well on your way to becoming lapdogs of Konoha."

After this speech, he fell silent, waiting to see what effect his goading might have had.

"What Village are you from?" I asked him, laying a warning hand on Kabuto's elbow to keep him from actually drawing a _kunai. _I saw no need to ask if the stranger was a _shinobi_ or not; that he had taken notice of our passage indicated that he was.

Finally, perhaps because my question wasn't one he deemed stupid, the man turned around. I saw that he had a pale, narrow face, a wide, sneering mouth, and eyes that regarded me with the slit-thin gaze of a snake feigning sleep. He was smiling.

And he wore no _hitae ate._

"How foolish," he said. "What Village you come from doesn't make you who you _are._" The narrowed eyes slid sideways to Kabuto at my side, then back to me, dismissing my teammate. "You are an Uchiha," he observed, looking at me more intently now. There was a hungry look in his eye that I immediately disliked---I was a boy who knew very well how people looked when they wanted something from you.

"You're from Konoha," I replied. I don't know how I knew that, even to this day. It wasn't because he knew I was an Uchiha---in those days the clan was internationally famous. Possibly it was because he hadn't answered my question, and because he spoke aloud with the same air of malcontent I'd just been beginning to feel. It was the air of a man who'd cast aside all fetters chaining him to what he'd once been.

"I was from Konoha," he agreed. "But now I'm here. I'm waiting for the fireworks to start."

This time I drew my own weapon from its pouch. "What do you know?" I asked in a low voice. He knew something of my team's agenda; I was sure of it. And I was prepared to silence him if need be.

We stared each other down for a moment; myself tense and ready, he more like a man eyeing a dog he thinks may bite him.

"Itachi-_kun_ . . ." Kabuto sounded, for once, as if he had no idea what to do.

A slow smile spread across the stranger's thin lips. One corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. "Your eyes, boy," he said. "Aren't you the eager one?"

I had activated the Sharingan without realizing it. I didn't relax my stance.

He laughed, short and harsh. _"Keh. _What if I were to tell you, boy, that I have no intention of stopping you from killing Gyoichi-_sama? _That I support the noble intentions of your mission? Will you just go around me without doing anything?" He tilted his head to one side, curiously. "Or will you kill me anyway, because you want to?"

Finally, I straightened, though I kept my knife in hand. "I don't want to kill you."

The stranger laughed, as if at some private joke. "Oh, but your eyes say you do. I shall let you pass, anyway, of course. I want to see this pathetic excuse for a feudal lord die, as well."

I nodded briskly, turning away from him and motioning for Kabuto to follow me. I was grateful that our mission required haste from us, because I didn't like the way those snake-slit eyes looked at me.

"Are you sure you won't regret letting me live?" the stranger asked slyly as we passed him by. "What if your mission is wrong, and killing the tyrant will make things worse in the future? What if I told you I'm glad you're the ones sullying your hands because otherwise _I'd_ have to?"

I didn't give him the satisfaction of a backward glance.

Kabuto did, though. "We have no _reason_ to kill you," he countered. "Don't ask pointless questions."

I could hear the grin in the stranger's voice as he answered: "Reason, boy, is a very subjective thing. In the end, it all comes down to what you really want and what you have the balls to reach out and _take._"

We crested the hill and started downward, leaving him behind.

Two hours later, Aburame Akito and Uchiha Setsuna were dead, a new country had been formed, and in Kabuto the seeds of treason had been sown.

**OoO OoO OoO**

"Sensei,your eyes---" I whispered, frowning.

"We'll speak of it later," Setsuna cut me off, slicing his hand through the air in negation. "Remember your task."

My task was simple enough. We were huddled in an alcove down a long stone hall from the room where Gyoichi and his son were taking the evening meal. My body was taut with nerves. One hand clenched so tight around itself the nails left white indentations in my palm. We had been concealing ourselves in shadow until nightfall, so the cover of darkness would aid in retreating undiscovered. And now we were ready to move. Somehow, Setsuna-_sensei _was going to force the son to kill the father. All I had to do was use the Sharingan afterward to subdue the son. We were to make it look as if there had been a fight resulting in the death of one and the injury of the other.

"Let's go," Setsuna told me, averting his gaze. We started down the hall.

Planning to kill someone and actually doing it are two very different things. When you plan, the targets are just names on a paper, or on your tongue if your purpose requires too much secrecy to write anything down. Just names. Then you round the corner and see them: human faces. One old, one young, and a third you hadn't expected to see, because the son also has a mother and she's staring at you in white-faced alarm as you reach for your knife. Your Sensei's eyes are rust-red, filled with spirals whose edges are sharp as _shuriken _blades. The room wavers, and you shut your eyes to try not to look at him, because you realize he is using an illusion technique and you don't want to be drawn into it. You hear a scream. It's the woman's, because her son has just taken the knife your Sensei placed in his hand and driven it into the father's throat. Even before the target's body hits the floor your Sensei speaks your name, because you're not just a spectator are you? You are a _part_ of this. So do what you must. You open your eyes and activate their power, grasping the son by the collar of his robes and forcing him to meet your gaze. His eyes are very wide and frightened, and his face is a boy's. He _is_ a boy; not much older than you are. _Sleep, _you whisper, wanting him to stop looking at you like you're a monster, so that you can be done with this mission and go home to where red is just the color of berries and sunsets and the scab on your brother's knee where he fell running . . .

Mercifully, I had used the Sharingan well and Gyoichi's son sagged in my arms. He slept immediately, but thanks to the technique Setsuna had used he would remember only what we wanted him to---that he had killed his own father. I laid him carefully on the floor near the door, so that when the castle guards found him it would appear that he had fallen unconscious after the fight with Gyoichi. And I stood over him for a moment, knowing that more was expected of me but battling the nausea that twisted my stomach.

"_ITACHI." _Setsuna wasn't looking at me, but his voice came like a whip-crack. I half-turned and saw him walk briskly to the woman, who knelt on the other side of the low table, a tea cup still clutched absurdly in one hand. Her face was so white she looked dead. Perhaps she knew she was already dead. "Itachi," Sensei repeated as he handed her the knife, "do what you came to do." To the woman, he bent nearer and whispered, "Kill yourself."

I sucked in a deep breath, turning back to the boy lying prone in front of me. He lay with his face turned to the side. A stray lock of hair curled over one cheek. It's strange how you notice these things when you're clasping a blade between your sweaty fingers.

I stabbed him once. In the left arm, where he could bleed to death if left too long but he would not die immediately. I did it at that moment because I did not want to watch the boy's mother die.

**OoO OoO OoO**

"Sensei, your eyes . . ."

"Now is not the _time_, Itachi," he snapped.

We were running again. The sound of explosions and men shouting echoed through the stone halls; Akito's and Kabuto's diversions had already begun---in two separate places, to heighten the confusion they generated. I heard the sound of footsteps---light, _shinobi _footsteps coming toward us around a corner---and Setsuna grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out a window after him. We landed crouched on a roof below, then took off at breakneck speed along its peaked ridge, careful not to step hard on any of the tiles and break them. We had run into an unforeseen complication: Gyoichi had hired some of the Fuma Clan---an independent _shinobi _clan located in that part of the Fire Country. Unlike the clumsier guards, other _shinobi _could easily pursue us---especially _shinobi _who knew the terrain better than we did.

When we finally regrouped with our teammates, just inside the fortress walls, we found Kabuto and Akito locked in a standoff. Kabuto stood facing two _shinobi _opponents, one of whom held Akito with _chakra _wires about his throat. I knew just how quickly one could kill one's target with that technique, and I hurled four _kunai _as I landed on the ground, aiming to cut the wires. As Akito and his captor stumbled apart, the bugs that the Aburame Chuunin had been sending quietly along the wires now swarmed up his enemy's fingers and arms and onto his face. Setsuna dispatched with the other Fuma ninja quickly; he was in a hurry. Then the four of us scaled the high walls and dropped down on the other side. We hit the ground running.

We had taken precious care to see that all who recognized us for the Leaf-_nin _that we were ended up dead. All that remained was to get clear of the area to completely avoid discovery. This way, even though Gyoichi's son and officials would surely surmise that Konoha had sent the assassins, there would be no witnesses and therefore no legalities. Technically, a Village is not authorized to kill the feudal lords of its country. That law exists because civilians fear us even as they use us to avoid sullying their own hands. They fear _shinobi _acquiring positions of political power. But in the case of this mission, all the Fire Country's feudal lords agreed assassination was necessary, and so long as we left no witnesses they were willing to look the other way where the law was concerned. Brutal, but necessary.

At the time, however, I didn't know that the part where we forced the son to kill the father was not part of the mission. Setsuna lied---a lie that cost the boy's mother her life and the boy his mental stability. My Sensei lied because there was much he stood to gain if a weak boy inherited Gyoichi's lands.

There's always a price.

We cleared the hills that ringed the torch-lit fortress and descended into the darkened fens beyond. That was where Orochimaru lay in wait for us. Don't mistake me, though; I don't mean to say he was _hiding_. He's an arrogant man. He was standing in the middle of the road, facing the same direction as when we'd left him, with his arms still folded behind his back. He offered my Sensei an asp's grin.

"It's done, then, is it?" he remarked, as congenially as if what we'd just done was some D-ranked mission shoveling barn-dung. My whole body clenched with anger; I could not get the boy's face out of my head, and this sneering bastard was _laughing. _

But my Sensei---whom I had never in my life known to kneel before anyone---sank to one knee in a crouch, with one fist planted on the earth, in the manner of a servant before his master. "I've fulfilled the requirements you asked of me. I've earned my place among you."

At the time, I had no idea what he meant by this.

The sneering stranger, however, did. "You're a prime candidate, to be sure," he told my Sensei. "Uchiha Setsuna, of that prized clan. However . . . there's one thing left to do before you join." His gaze slid sideways, to me. "Kill that boy."

I saw my Sensei reach for his _kunai _pouch and tensed. There was no hesitation in the hand that drew the knife. None at all.

Setsuna rose and flew at me.

He was swift, but I was just as swift. Training with Shisui had made me fleeting as a shadow. I slipped between the _kunai _he threw easily. There were wires attached to the handles of each; he meant to trap me quickly and pull the wires tight, garroting my body until I burst. But my Sharingan eyes caught his trap early and I razed the wires apart with my _shuriken. _

I was almost on top of him when I realized the true nature of his trap. He had used the wires and the _kunai _as a feint, to lure me into close combat with him. I hurtled toward him, teeth gritted with the determination to end this before he could spring whatever _jutsu _his trap held.

He stopped me with his eyes.

The Mangekyou Sharingan was, to put it crudely, the Uchiha Clan's dirty little secret. I don't know if it still is---they may have burnt the scroll after what I did. I hope not, but it seems likely they would have while reeling from the horror. _If you want to see what someone fears, mark well what he chooses to destroy._ It's a saying that we---the Akatsuki---use often.

To this day I don't know the circumstances under which Setsuna acquired that advanced _dojutsu_. Looking back on it now, though, I judge his skill with it to be rather poor, or he would have used _Tsukiyomi _on me to incapacitate me fully. But he didn't, and it saved me.

I saw the world melt around me and drip out from beneath my feet into an endless void. Really, my Sensei wasn't very original. I knew immediately that the vision wasn't real, even though it _felt_ real enough because my skin was burning where it melted. Out of sheer determination I bit back the screams, so hard my tongue bled.

When next I returned to myself, I had sunk to my knees. Akito stood between Setsuna and I. His bugs had swarmed in our Sensei's face, covering his eyes and breaking the contact. A _kunai _blade was embedded in my chest, just below the collar bone on the left side. Even with his vision was blocked, Setsuna's blade had nearly found its mark. That was why he released the _jutsu_ and let me go---he was trying to kill me, not torture me. But I was still conscious.

"KABUTO!" Akito shouted, never once taking his eyes off our Sensei. "See to Itachi!" The insects were burrowing into Setsuna's flesh, seeking to damage the _tenketsu _lines to prevent him from using any of the formidable Uchiha _ninjutsu _against us, but Setsuna had somehow managed to produce another handful of _kunai _between the fingers of his left hand.

Fighting for breath against the tightness and the pain in my chest, I tilted my head forward and sideways and saw, out of the corner of my watering eye, that Kabuto had frozen. I had never seen that happen before, even though I had always known him to be one to hang back and analyze a situation before rushing in.

"K-Kabu---" I whispered, crawling toward him. I wanted him to take the knife out. Every time I exhaled the edges twisting fractionally inside me sent pain searing through the nerves of my stomach and neck and left shoulder. Setsuna's _kunai _whizzed past me, behind me, grazed one ear.

I craned my neck and finally saw what Kabuto was looking at. The stranger who had started all this no longer seemed content to be a bystander. Orochimaru convulsed like a man retching and fat snakes came roiling out his mouth. All of this happened so quickly I blinked twice and it was done. When his lips had closed behind the tail of the last, he stretched out his arms and the serpents coiled round and round them, slithering toward his hands. Then he lunged toward me, with greater speed than I'd expected of someone who'd seemed so complacent before. This time Kabuto moved, attempting to rush behind him to catch him off guard before he could reach me. Instead, one of the snakes torqued its body and went seething back up his arm, over his shoulder, and sank its fangs deep into Kabuto's forearm when Kabuto's knife was still inches away from Orochimaru's neck.

Orochimaru was nearly upon me. I saw the eyes of the snakes, like cold diamonds, fixed on my face. I was weakening fast. But my Sharingan eyes also saw the _chakra _gathering in the snakes' mouths, and knew that if I surrendered to this attack I would not survive. With the kind of strength that can only be born of desperation I wrenched the _kunai _from my own flesh and flung it at him.

I can hit a target in the dark. I can hit several at once, simply from perfect visual memory. And I can throw faster than an eye-blink. Between that snap of my wrist and when my enemy halted his rush, there seemed to have been no time elapsed at all. But a heartbeat's span had passed, and I saw that he had withdrawn one snake-wound arm to catch my _kunai _in his fist, the point literally a finger's away from the spot between his eyes.

Having bought myself time by stopping his charge, I scrambled backward on all fours, my mind already formulating plans of action.

Ten feet behind Orochimaru, Kabuto had sunk to his knees now. The snake still held him fast, though he quickly produced a knife in his left hand and was stabbing at it. The knife would not pierce the scaly hide.

While I had been preoccupied with Orochimaru, Setsuna caught Akito with _chakra _wires round the throat. My Sensei was enraged beyond reason; he was in pain and he was losing and he knew it, and he was determined not to die alone. He no longer cared who he killed. Or maybe he actually _did_ still think he could kill me in that condition---with bugs eating away at his _tenketsu---_and was stupid enough to think Orochimaru would heal him afterward just as long as he did what he'd been told to do.

Whatever was going through Setsuna's mind in that moment, while the insects ate his eyes, while the wires he wove tightened round Akito's neck . . . it doesn't matter any more. I killed him so quickly I was hardly aware of what I'd done until it was finishedA _kunai _blade driven into the vertebra at the base of the skull, severing vital nerves. I had pushed myself to my feet and rushed, with a strength that only comes from that deep core of _something _that transcends pain and weakness. My hand moved as if of its own accord, and my heart went empty and my mind went sharp and my vision went clearer than it had ever been before. The world sharpened as I drove the knife downward, as the crack came, as he dropped like a stone---a twitching, gasping, human stone.

When he hit the ground, with a thud that thundered and echoed in the caverns of my brain, time slowed down again to its normal pace. His fingers clawed at the earth where he landed. I tore my gaze from him quickly and severed the wires binding Akito. Akito slumped to his knees, gasping a slower, deeper countermeasure of breath over the horrid wet gurgling that whistled between Setsuna's lips. I bent and helped my teammate to remove the last of the garrote from his neck.

That was when I realized Orochimaru was laughing. And that he had abandoned pursuit of me.

Slowly, I turned to him. A wide grin split his face. "Uchiha Itachi, wasn't it?" he said lazily. "It seems you've robbed me of a disciple. Now you must give me another."

My whole body was shaking---my child's body, betraying me as I bled and swayed where I stood. I didn't give him the satisfaction of replying---couldn't have if I'd wanted to. I took one staggering step toward him, still clutching the knife I'd just used to kill my Sensei and save my comrade.

"Oh? You do want to kill me?" Orochimaru chuckled. "Well, you're out of your league, boy. But let me let you in on a little secret. I wanted your Sensei dead as well as Gyoichi-_sama. _You've actually done me a favor. So I'm going to let you go. But first . . . kill one of your teammates."

My vision was wavering. I fought with sheer willpower to keep my eyes focused. "One?" I croaked. My throat had gone dry as bone.

With the _kunai _I'd thrown at him he gestured toward Akito, who knelt beside me, and then toward Kabuto, who also knelt clutching his wounded forearm. I didn't doubt there was strong venom in the snakes' fangs; Kabuto's forehead was beaded with sweat.

"Pick one," Orochimaru told me, "and you and the other will go free. Here's your chance to prove your worth. Here's life and death. I lay it in your hands."

I merely stood there, staring at him and hating him more than I'd ever hated anyone. My hatred was all I had left to fling at him. "Don't ask stupid things," I said hoarsely. "I don't want to 'prove myself' in anyone'seyes." Even as I said it, I knew I was going to die there. And my mind, ever well-honed and resourceful, was offering me strategies for killing either Kabuto or Akito. Presenting reasons why I should choose each of them. Weighing human life like meat on a butcher's scale.

My head reeled, and briefly I saw the world at a slant. I was going to lose consciousness soon, I knew.

What happened next I only remember as if it were a dream. It's odd---I remember other even more terrible parts of my life so clearly I can close my eyes and watch them come to life . . . But not that night. Looking back, it's almost like seeing myself from a distance, as if it were someone else forcing himself to remain upright while whispering _No, no, I won't, I WON'T_. Charging. Fire _jutsu _burning empty air because the enemy already moved. Stumbling an about face to see him poised with my _kunai _at Akito's throat. He had been waiting for me to turn around and see him, so he could show me how powerless I was. He ran his tongue along the flat of the blade, lapping up my blood.

My useless Sharingan eyes showed me where his hand would strike even before it did.

Akito died swiftly, in that dream.

I remained standing. Barely. No words to fling at him; there weren't any.

Somewhere behind me, I heard Kabuto gasp, "Don't kill me! Please! I'll do what you say, just don't kill me . . ."

Don't kill _me, _he said. In that moment we'd ceased to be _us. _

I learned something from Kabuto upon hearing that: human beings are sacks of meat. In the end, they cry out for themselves and what they want and what they deserve because to them, that's all there is. Kabuto, groveling, yammering something about his abilities, holding up his stricken arm. Disgusting.

"I give you both a choice," Orochimaru told Kabuto and I, tossing our dead teammate aside. Akito's body fell across Setsuna's. "I'm letting you go. But someday I want you to join me. Once you've realized that even your mighty Konoha must still lick the boots of the civilian lords. Once you realize your precious clans are nothing but names to bind you to small-minded servitude. Come to me, when you've found the courage to piss on your meaningless ideals and do something that actually _means _something."

Something in his speech was like the darker echo of my doubts. "Not . . . worthless," I whispered, falling to my hands and knees. My head was growing lighter and lighter, and I could scarcely feel the dirt beneath my palms. But I had to defy him. If I didn't, I was accepting that my doubts were true.

"Don't try to judge me, stupid brat," Orochimaru sneered. "You don't even know what you _are._"

"Uchiha," I whispered. "Itachi. Son of---"

"_Names_," he snapped. "_Son, brother, student, Genin, Uchiha, boy. _Labels. You won't know yourself until you know your limits. When you realize your boundaries are far bigger than four Village walls. So think about that, _Uchiha _Itachi. Do you know what you can do? Do you _really_? You don't yet. Go home, lick your wounds, comfort yourself with their lies about how _the Village, the Clan _is all there is."

Crunch of gravel beneath his sandals. He left us there, crouched bleeding on the road. With him he took the bodies of our teammate and Sensei.

**OoO OoO OoO**

It was nearly a week before Kabuto and I returned to Konoha. We moved very slowly at first; Kabuto's healing abilities saved us both, but I had lost a lot of blood and Kabuto a lot of _chakra. _When we'd recounted all that had befallen us to the Hokage himself, it was judged that we'd done well in the worst of all possible situations. I left the office after Kabuto, trying to ignore the way the Sandaime's piercing stare followed me out. I worried him, I think. But he had nothing concrete to hold against me, so he did nothing.

As I made my way down the old, familiar streets of the Uchiha compound, shopkeepers and friends of the family alike stopped what they were doing to call out in greeting. I nodded to some of them; others I was too weary to respond to. My clothes, despite several attempts to scrub them clean, were deep-stained with blood---my own and Setsuna's and Akito's and, in smaller, darker blots on my sandals, that of Gyoichi's son.

When I set foot on the threshold of my house, I saw my entire family sitting in the receiving hall, waiting for me. Sasuke sat beside my father, solemn-faced and tiny but obviously trying to imitate _Chichi-ue_'s dignified bearing. But when he saw me come through the door his face lit up, and he practically threw himself at me. I stumbled back a step, but he'd wrapped his arms around me so firmly I didn't trip.

"Sasuke, Itachi is tired," my father said sharply.

My brother pulled away from me and went to sit down again, biting his lip. I followed suit, purposefully sitting far away from him. It was as if the touch of his small hand on mine had burned me.

When you see too much red, the world goes colorless for a while, and takes a long time to brighten again.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I spoke very little of my experiences on the mission, though my proud relatives plied me with questions. In fact, I spoke very little at all. I began avoiding everyone, especially Sasuke. Seeing him smile at me so trustingly made me see the stray lock of hair, curled down over a boy's cheek as he lay helpless on the floor.

And Setsuna's and Akito's deaths were problematic for Kabuto and I in more ways than one. We were a broken team. We threw ourselves into training, because despite our acclaim in Konoha requests for our services on missions weren't exactly pouring in any more. In the grand scale of things, thanks to Orochimaru's interference the mission had ended in blunder. Lord Gyoichi's assassination wasn't supposed to be traced back to Konoha, but it was. He'd somehow planted Setsuna's body on the scene, and with a dead Uchiha in the hands of the Fuma Clan Konoha was forced to barter for the corpse's return to protect the Uchiha bloodline. The cost: Gyoichi's son, who succeeded his father, ordered the secession of his fiefdom from the Fire Country.

The Rice Country was born.

And without the protection of the Leaf, the new lord naively fell prey to Orochimaru's lies. But that's another story altogether.

The point is, our 'blunder' had cost the Fire lords a large chunk of the country.

Seeking to improve our positions, Kabuto and I took the next Chuunin Exam as a two-man team. I saved his life in the Forest of Death. He lost his match in the arena afterward. I was finally officially named Chuunin; Kabuto wasn't. But he actually seemed sincere when he said he didn't mind. I didn't realize at the time, but he was even quicker to see the meaninglessness of titles than I was. He had decided 'Chuunin' was a name he didn't need.

I was not as ready to think beyond the patterns of my life. Yet.

But I did have one very important question for my father. I had asked it twice before, and gotten no answer.

"_Chichi-ue, _why were Setsuna-_sensei_'s eyes different?"

**END OF CHAPTER 3**

_Yamisui: Next chapter, Chapter 4: "ANBU". Where it all begins to unravel._


	4. ANBU

_Yamisui: Hope you've all taken your Prozac._

**OoO SCARLET OoO**

**OoO OoO Chapter 4: ANBU OoO OoO**

My father did not answer my question immediately. I think . . . by that point . . . not only was he afraid for me---he was afraid _of _me. He knew very well what the Mangekyou Sharingan was, and how it could be obtained. So he looked down into the face of the ten-year-old boy who had killed Uchiha Setsuna and said, "That _dojutsu_ is something you will learn about when you're older."

I misunderstood him at the time. I thought he meant I would 'learn' the _dojutsu _from him, as if the Mangekyouwere something all adult Uchiha knew how to work. My instruction concerning that technique and the complete and utter disillusionment that came afterward would not occur for another two years. In the meantime, however, I was beginning to be resentful---truly resentful---for the first time, after I'd returned from the Rice Country mission. I had become an assassin and lost two comrades all at once. Achievement of Genin and Chuunin rank should have been enough to prove me in my father's eyes, and if not for the sake of those then suffering should have been enough. But for all I'd suffered and seen, for all the new strength I'd acquired, it was never enough.

My father kept me at an arm's length, and watched me carefully.

It seems a simple thing, I suppose, to say I was being watched. But think about it: do you know what it's like to have those who are supposed to be more powerful than you begin to look at you with wariness in their eyes? To be a child and to realize you somehow have the power to unnerve? I wasn't stupid, and after what I'd been through in the Rice Country I knew I was drawing near to being as strong as my father. I kept training, and growing . . . and still I saw no limit in the near future.

What I learned from my father's wariness was to be afraid of myself.

There were only two people, at this point in my life, who looked at me without wariness. The first was Shisui. The second was Sasuke.

Sasuke . . . worshipped me. I'm not sure when it began. Shisui noticed, on the rare occasions he accompanied me to my training grounds, that Sasuke was trailing me and hid to watch me practice. "Itachi, you've got a shadow," he remarked. I'd noticed, too, but hadn't tried to make a great deal of it. I started trying to leave the house more quietly after that, and made a new training area that I kept secret. But Sasuke, to my surprise, found me again.

Eventually I stopped trying to hide. I called out to him, so he didn't have to crouch in trees until his knees grew stiff to watch me in secret. Once, he sheepishly admitted to me, he'd even knelt on an anthill when he was hiding in the bushes and went home with welts all over his shins.

He was fascinated by my strength. He wanted to know what I wanted to do with it.

He wanted to know how he could grow up to have it.

Sasuke was just like me in that respect. He really was my shadow. I let him watch me, though I never directly invited him to come---I left it up to him to figure out when and where I was going. And I didn't mind when he asked me stupid, childish things, because I saw in him my past self---the Itachi who hadn't yet killed a boy in the Chuunin arena, or become an assassin. Sasuke had the cruel honesty of the innocent; some of his questions made me question myself.

It was ridiculous that my father didn't pay much attention to my brother. Sasuke had such a _hunger _for strength. And for truth. But my father saw only me, with my strength and my cold heart. He was too determined to make me a leader.

One hot summer day after sparring with me, my father stepped back, sweating, and told me gravely that he'd taught me everything he knew. There was pride written plainly in his stance; he clasped his hands behind him and faced me straight-backed and level-eyed like a man does his equal.

"Now it's up to you to use it wisely," he told me, nodding acknowledgement. "You'll make a fine leader."

My father never once told me that I must also become a good man.

Of course, _good_ and _evil_ are created by the simple, the fearful. Power transcends everything---every _shinobi _knows this instinctively. I was beginning to understand that.

I was growing rapidly at that age, approaching Shisui's height and beginning to fill out. My shoulders became too broad for my clothes; we bought new ones. And I knew instinctively, with the wordless intuition of the young, that I was meant to keep growing to fill out the dimensions of a greater life. How could my father tell me proudly that I had reached the height? I had barely begun.

My breath caught in my throat after his pronouncement. I wanted to shout, _This can't be all there is! There must be more! _But my cold, rational self---so adept at reining in those impulses---moved my lips, and I found myself asking, "Wasn't there something else? Another _dojutsu_?"

My father grew curt and tight-lipped, and his only response to my question was, "One more year, and you'll be old enough to know about that."

I was eleven.

After that day, I kept training obsessively. There had to be more. _Kunai _could fly with greater accuracy. Sharingan eyes could see more clearly. Desperate to keep the mind growing and changing so I didn't become bored and stagnant and dead.

One day I returned from training to find what seemed like my entire clan waiting for me, seated in our receiving hall. All in rows, as if there were a funeral. But there was no shrine at the head of the room, and no incense. Instead, there was a scroll. My father held it.

"Come, Uchiha Itachi," he told me, beckoning me to him. He said it proudly, but there was a set to his jaw even grimmer than usual, and I approached with misgivings. "You're twelve years old now, and a man in our eyes. It's time you learned the secrets of the clan."

When he told me this, I went to him without hesitation. It's fair to ask, I suppose, that if someone had told me then that my innocence was about to be lost forever, would I have accepted the scroll? My head was full of questions then, and I was in no state of mind to refuse answers. So yes, I would still have accepted the scroll. Because the truth was important.

And the secret. Of course, the secret . . .

Konoha, champion village of the Fire Country, was not originally governed by a Hokage. When the village was first formed, there was only a council of representatives from each founding clan. But there were two men---the heads of the two most powerful clans---who felt that the strongest should lead the others. One of these men was a Hyuuga. Great dissent arose in the council. Breakout violence, or even civil war, seemed inevitable.

That was when, and why, the Uchiha were created. _Created. _Bred. Engineered. The clan opposing the Hyuuga did this in secret, using the genes of their rivals to create an even stronger clan.

I read with no expression on my face, but as I did something inside me began to burn.

Why were the Uchiha created?

Why was I created?

Our purpose?

My purpose?

The Uchiha were born to become stronger than Konoha's strongest clan. To rule the village.

But we were a failure.

We couldn't compare with the Hyuuga. War did break out, between the two great clans, and the Uchiha were caught between. Many died, because we weren't strong enough to be used for our intended purpose. And afterward . . . the two clan leaders fought one-on-one, at the Valley of the End. The Hyuuga leader died. His rival became Hokage. And the Uchiha, whom he'd created, became his watchdogs. We became Konoha's policing force, and established our name and our place in the new government. The first Hokage treated us as an honored clan, and we became wealthy.

But every time there was a war, we were sent to the front lines. And the Hyuuga, Konoha's trump cards, were guarded like hothouse flowers.

Our clan had a secret: a terrible secret, developed by the first Hokage during his conflict with the Hyuuga. When he saw that the Uchiha weren't strong enough to win him his war, he found a way for us to become more powerful. Stumbled upon it by accident, while experimenting. I won't speak of the nature of those experiments---they were disgusting. Demeaning. During one of them, an Uchiha man rebelled and killed one of those overseeing the experiment. She was a woman he'd once loved.

He went insane with grief. For months, he was like a man with no soul, except in sleep, when he raved like a madman. And then . . . he returned to himself. And his Sharingan was changed. Members of the first Hokage's clan---the ones who had created the Uchiha---wanted to develop the Mangekyou Sharingan to use against the Hyuuga. They were ruthless and shrewd, with the foresight to see that strength is everything. But when their clan leader achieved his goal, becoming the Shodaime, and he changed. He felt the eyes of all Konoha on him, and sensed that if he couldn't make them forget his past brutality they would overthrow him. The new government was soft, after all. Letting old men and women make our laws; sitting peaceably at a table while they sent _shinobi _out to die in strange lands.

Thanks to the Shodaime, the Mangekyou Sharingan became forbidden. Knowledge of it was banished, except to be used as a warning to Uchiha boys coming of age. With it, I understood, the Uchiha could have been stronger than the Hyuuga. We could have been gods. But Konoha's laws forbade it.

And the stupid, blind Uchiha forsook it for the sake of peace.

As I stood there, rooted to the spot, holding the scroll, I began to realize for the first time the depth of that stupidity.

_Why? Why? _I pretended to still be reading, but my eyes saw nothing. My ears rang with silent questions. _What am I doing? Why do any of this? Why fight to protect when we're nothing but tools? _

"Itachi," my father said. He reached for the scroll. Took it easily because my fingers had gone numb.

"Now you know the secret," my uncles said to me. "Now you are truly an Uchiha."

They were telling me: _Now that you know the height you could have reached, you must abandon all hope of reaching it._

Afterward, when they left me alone at last, I went to my room and tore up the scroll where I'd once written down the Yondaime's words. _Protect? Serve? Is nobility just an easy way to die? _Bits of shredded paper fell around me like snow. _The clan! The clan! Damn them for their cowardice! Let them take their secrets straight to hell!_

I was never the same again.

I began to hate everything around me. It was like a slow-working potion, poisoning everything familiar until I could no longer see it, taste it, feel it. As it had after the assassination, the world's color faded to black and white.

I trained. I ate. I spoke, and no one was the wiser. But inside I burned. Instead of becoming numb and dead as I had after the assassination, I let the slow hatred fill me. And it suffused me with strength, like _chakra _itself.

Sasuke sensed it, I think. He followed me everywhere, wide-eyed and smiling shyly because even though he loved me he was nervous of me.

Once, after a particularly long practice, he became overly excited and managed to sprain his ankle. I carried him home. On the way, we passed the station where our father worked. As we passed I felt Sasuke's heart skip a beat against my back and came to a halt.

"What is it?"

"This is where our father works, right?"

"This is the headquarters of Konoha's police force," I explained.

He asked me why it bore our symbol on its sign-block. It was like a needle in my gut.

I swallowed my bitterness and gave him the appropriate explanation. But I also said, "The only ones who may judge the crimes of _shinobi _are superior _shinobi._" I was telling him that by right the strongest rule. What I wanted to say was that the Uchiha were weak because they chose to be, and so others ruled over them.

"Are you gonna join too?" he asked.

Ahead of him, where he couldn't see, my face went dark. "Hmm . . . maybe."

_And why not? _I thought, with a viciousness that surprised even me. _After all, aren't I alsofated to bow to the destiny of my clan? _

"You should!" he chirped in my ear. "When I grow up, I want to join the police force, too! For tomorrow's entrance exam, _'tou-san's _gonna come too. It'll be the first step to realizing my dream."

His skinny little-boy-arms tightened round my shoulders. There was such fervor in his voice, such naïve earnestness, that it jolted me from my resentment. I hadn't realized until that moment just how much my creature he was. Sasuke wanted to join Konoha's policing force because he thought _I_ did. If I'd told him then what I was really thinking, I believe he would've accepted it and changed his mind in a heartbeat. Because he loved me.

It was like I was seeing him for the first time.

That day, my father met us and hurried us home. He wanted to accompany me on my next mission, and he seemed excited. I wanted none of his excitement. So I reminded him that Sasuke was entering the Academy, and threatened to forego the mission to attend the ceremony. I knew my father well. All it took was a subtle reminder not to neglect Sasuke and he surrendered to guilt. And I'd gleaned from his behavior that the mission was something very important. Some opportunity to earn me some new acclaim; the Uchiha constantly sought acclaim in the village. They used pride to distract themselves from what they could _really _do.

While my father oversaw my brother's graduation, I embarked on the mission with a larger team than I was accustomed to---four other people. Kabuto, a Chuunin girl from the Inuzuka clan, and two Jounin. The Jounin were there to assess me for some reason; I didn't know at the time they were considering me for Jounin rank. Thus it was left to me to lead the mission, despite my young age.

I won't say much about the mission itself. It was dangerous; it required great mental and physical aptitude on my part. But what makes it worth mentioning at all is that I met Orochimaru. Again.

We met some heavy resistance from a renegade clan near the Cloud Country border. During the fight, I judged it best that my team separate and make for the trees, where as Leaf ninja we would have the advantage of terrain experience. Then I caught a glimpse of black, lanky hair, and a narrow, ghastly pale face, and without even considering the consequences I took off after him on my own. I didn't want my comrades to witness me speaking to him. Or killing him. At the time, in my state of inner turmoil, I wasn't sure which I wanted more.

He'd clearly intended for me to follow him, because after a while he came to a halt. He stood on the ground patiently until at last I descended from the high branches. He wanted us on even ground.

I stood before him a young man, shorter than he was but secure in my strength. And he . . . he looked different as well. He wore white robes tied with a purple obi such that they bulged round the middle, and upon his clothes he bore a crest I'd never seen before. I knew better than to think it was the crest of his former clan in Konoha.

"What is your reason?" I asked sharply. I was angry; I lacked the patience for preliminaries. I wanted to know why he'd sought me out again.

Orochimaru laughed, folding his hands composedly behind his back. "You've grown," he observed. "You've already outgrown Konoha and its ideals. And everything around you makes you sick."

I said nothing. Waited for him to answer what I'd asked.

"There's an organization," he said, "called Akatsuki." He lifted his right hand and I saw he wore a ring on it. "We believe that the powerful are meant to rule. Not civilians, not feudal lords, but _shinobi." _His slitted eyes gleamed. "Superior _shinobi._"

I kept my guard, holding _kunai _lightly in each hand to throw if need be. "And you want me to join? Why?"

"Because you're like me," he replied, "and I'm like you. Or I will be." He chuckled, seeming to make some kind of private joke. At the time I had no idea of his designs on the Uchiha bloodline limit, or that he used forbidden _jutsu _to change bodies. I was just tired of his riddles.

"And what is it . . . that you want from me?" I asked slowly. I knew better than to think he was doing this for _me. _

His smile grew slyer still. "I want the secrets of the Uchiha."

"Why?" I asked. "What secrets we have are unique to our . . . blood." I had just barely stopped myself from saying "breed." We were a breed, after all. Like hounds the feudal lords breed for hunting.

"What I want from the Uchiha has nothing to do with _you_," Orochimaru countered. His yellow eyes seemed to stare right through me. "Don't pretend you care what happens to them. You want power and you want freedom." His lips parted in a grin again. "We both know protecting the weak is a waste of time."

He paused; my hands had clenched round the _kunai. _But I neither moved nor spoke. His words frightened me, but at the same time the anger gnawing at my heart burned my chest, compelled me to listen.

"You already know that people who don't have strong desire are just bags of flesh. So what are the Uchiha to you?" When I didn't answer, he laughed, short and sharp. "Heh. Well, I have a lot to do. If you won't choose now, I'll see you again, in the Rice Country."

I flew at him. I hated his cryptic promises and I hated myself for wanting to believe them. I caught him by the shoulders and slammed him hard against the trunk of a tree. But he melted backward into the bark, slipping through my fingers as if he were a ghost. Laughing.

"What is your limit, Uchiha Itachi?" he asked. Then he was gone.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I regrouped with my team not long after. We returned safely to Konoha. Afterward, there was a report filed by all members in the presence of the Sandaime. We stood in his office in a row while he listened to us with fingers steepled thoughtfully beneath his chin.

I was distracted; I scarcely cared what they had to say about me. That is, until Hatake Kakashi turned to me and asked for my report on what had happened after we split up. He had a vague, nonchalant way of asking things, but the one dark eye with which he regarded me was shrewd and keen. I'd been wary of him from the moment we met, because he seemed wary of me.

I hadn't prepared a lie, and I sensed Kakashi-_san _would catch any I invented.

Fortunately, Kabuto was an accomplished liar. "Our paths crossed soon after," my teammate volunteered. "Itachi-_kun_ saved my life."

I stared at him. The smile he turned my way was so perfectly calculated that I knew I hadn't been the only one to meet Orochimaru during the mission. And I knew Kabuto had accepted Orochimaru's offer, because he didn't even try to make his own performance sound impressive before the Sandaime. He'd accepted the snake's offer in his heart long ago, and he had no use for pride.

Kakashi was still suspicious of me. I was curious because I knew he was someone my father disliked, but during the mission I'd made no effort to speak with him beyond what was required. As a genius, I was wary of geniuses---especially geniuses my father disliked. Setsuna-_sensei _had taught me that the powerful care only for themselves---a lesson I never forgot.

But Kakashi's mistrust was to have no profound effect on me. The panel named me Jounin, and Kabuto and I were secure in our lie. My father was proud. Everyone was so proud of me, they didn't notice the torment I was in.

"_What is your limit, Uchiha Itachi?"_

Orochimaru's question haunted me.

Orochimaru is honest to a point that transcends anyone I've ever known---and his honesty is too cruel for people to accept as truth, so they brand him _evil _and _criminal _and _twisted _and any label they see fit to use for an excuse not to listen to him. Even I---at an age where I was simultaneously haunted by doubts and determined to silence them---could not deny that his words rang of truth . . . such _truth _. . . I couldn't forget them. There's something about a question that rings truer than an answer; it challenges wisdom without presuming to be wise. To me, his question was a catalyst.

I began to question everything.

It was like a return to my childhood, when my head rang with ceaseless "Why?" Only now . . . the questions were cold and bitter, and I asked them only in my head.

It robbed me of sleep. That, perhaps, was the worst pattern I could've started. It made what was going on inside my head begin to show on the outside. That was dangerous, because it made my father forget his pride and begin to watch me more closely again.

**OoO OoO OoO**

It wasn't long before I was approached by ANBU and informed that they wanted me. I welcomed the opportunity to get out of the village, where the walls of my clan quarters had gone colorless, so I agreed to undergo their tests.

It wasn't long before the extra training on top of missions put too much strain on me. I began to do rash things.

One afternoon, I was training in the woods. I'd set up targets all around me, pointing toward me like a host of round Sharingan eyes.

I had just flung _kunai _toward them and settled to my feet after an intricate series of mid-air flips when I caught a glimpse of gray hair and glasses out of the corner of my eye. I landed in a crouch, wheeling about on the balls of my feet and balancing myself with the fingertips of both hands touching the dirt.

"Kabuto-_kun, _why are you here?"

I asked it calmly, but inwardly I resented that he'd found my secret training ground. Except for when missions required teamwork, I'd been avoiding Kabuto increasingly since the assassination incident.

"Looking for you," he replied, sun-spots dancing on his shoulders as he moved further into the clearing. "I've come to tell you about the prestigious mission you're being offered."

I stared at him. Kabuto was always hard to read. I never liked him.

But the air around him wavered, and the next thing I knew I was staring at a tall sixteen-year-old boy, lean but well-muscled, the back of his hair cropped haphazardly while the front still flopped rakishly across his forehead. His eyes were red with the Sharingan, but he was grinning at me.

"Shisui," I greeted him, nodding soberly. He'd fooled me and we both knew it. Our clan had even nicknamed him "Shisui of the Mirage," he'd become so talented with _genjutsu. _

"I seriously did come to tell you something good," he informed me. "They're considering you for ANBU."

I nodded, offering a faint smile. "Oh."

His grin lessened. "Congratulations." I could practically smell the jealousy on him, but for my sake he just stood there, waiting for me to say something. The line between love and hate is sometimes paper thin.

"Thank you," I replied, without feeling. There wasn't much else to say. With my recent promotion to Jounin rank, I'd achieved everything by twelve years that most _shinobi _spent a lifetime chasing after. Being inducted into ANBU only served to show me just how empty I was. I had everything.

And I had nothing.

But Shisui didn't understand that. My stillness and lack of enthusiasm were getting on his nerves.

"Well? Aren't you happy?" he asked, a bit too loudly. I rose slowly from my crouch, eyeing him with interest. He was more irritated than I'd thought.

"Uncle's proud of you, you know," Shisui reminded me. "You're a promising heir to us. You don't have anything to worry over." A pause. "Say something! You always go off on your own, like you think the world's against you. Well, it's not! You're being handed everything you could want!" Then he stopped himself, raking his fingers through his hair and looking away from me. "Shit, I didn't mean it like that." He still sounded like he meant it. He started pacing. His feet swished through the grass as he moved closer to me.

Was he angry? Well, so was I. I wanted to see what we could make with our anger.

"Why don't we fight, then?" I asked him, my eyes flaring red. "Show me what strength _is_."

But I'd made a mistake, challenging him like that. There was too little familiarity in my voice, and too much curiosity in the tilt of my head---too much detachment. It scared him. He grabbed me by the shoulders so hard his fingers dug into my upper arms and left bruises.

"What . . . the HELL is WRONG with you?" he snarled between clenched teeth. He looked as if he wanted to embrace me or shake me until my teeth rattled. But I stared at him coldly, waiting. When you lock hatred away inside it sears you, eats you, until you're paper thin and you want everything you touch to burn. Shisui could see through to the turmoil inside me, to what no one else could see because they wanted only to see _that genius. _Before my friend's eyes, every role I played---Uchiha heir, Jounin, son, brother, prodigy---all these fell away, and he saw _Itachi_. I loved Shisui in that moment.

And I hated him. Because what he saw confounded and frightened him. Because I couldn't bear my wretched self to be naked before another's judgment.

"I don't know myself," I told him, my voice ragged and thick. "What I'm meant for. Why I am. But no one here knows themselves. Not you. Not _Chichi-ue, _not the Uchiha. We serve and we protect. We die! And none of it means anything!"

He let go of me roughly, shoving me a few feet away from him. "Is that what you think?" he demanded. "That our lives are worthless? Genius, my ass! You're a damned moron. You go on missions, and they matter. You eat dinner with your family, you have a brother who worships the ground you walk on, and that matters too. You and me, standing here, that _matters_!"

"Do you _know _what it means to reach the height?" I snapped. "_Do _you? Does _anyone?" _

He didn't. And when I tried to put my frustration into words I failed miserably, leaving him confused and worried. "Stop looking for some great meaning to the world we're in," he finally said, shaking his head in disgust. "If you think too much, you're bound to hate yourself. You're just running in circles, and anyone with eyes can see it's wearing you out." He turned away from me and began to head off toward the village. Giving up on me.

The Uchiha crest, emblazoned on the back of his shirt, glared at me like a target.

A horrible thought occurred to me.

"Shisui. Is my father making you keep an eye on me?"

I saw him shake his head, but I knew he wasn't really denying it.

"Get some sleep, brat," he admonished gruffly. "You look like hell."

**OoO OoO OoO**

A few nights after, Sasuke had a nightmare and came into my room again, just like he had when he was five. "Eight years is too old to be scared of the dark," I told him. He just stood there, in the shadowed doorway, rubbing his eyes. "Did you see a ghost again?" I asked, as he climbed into my bed and claimed the middle space and my pillow for himself.

He rolled over, too embarrassed to look me in the face. But he mumbled into the pillow, "There were lots this time. Watching me in my bed."

It didn't take him long to drop off to sleep in _my _bed. I stayed sitting up for a while, watching him breathe. His face, in a square of moonlight from my window. The curve of his cheek and his spiky, tousled black hair. He looked like something awkward and unfinished.

We're connected by something I can't name, Sasuke and I. It isn't what others would call love---it's more like I'm filled with the responsibility of making him into something worthwhile. Because he's a piece of what I could have been, and because I can't let that go, I choose instead to master it and make it my tool. He's a piece of my shattered conscience, trailing after me like a shadow. Or a ghost.

Looking at him back then, in that square of moonlight, I wondered what sort of creature he would become. After all, when an artist holds a brush in hand before a blank canvas, can he help wondering what form he'll give it?

"But there's no hope for us in this village," I murmured. "There's nothing."

Sasuke muttered something in his sleep, then rolled over.

I was staring at him, but suddenly my eyes saw something else. My head snapped up, and my eyes flared red with a rush of ambition.

I knew, then.

There _was_ more. For me, for him. My clan was afraid of it. But I . . . was not.

**OoO OoO OoO**

After my induction into ANBU, the workload tripled. I was left with very little time to train on my own. Nevertheless, I still found the time to locate the hiding place for the scroll, and to begin a deep study of the Mangekyou Sharingan. No one ever caught me---of that I'm sure. If they had, it would all have ended before it began.

I wanted that power. My flailing mind latched onto it like a death grip on sanity. Every time I activated my Sharingan, alone or in combat, I tried to simulate the emotions the scroll claimed brought the technique into play. _Dojutsu, _you understand, relies on chemical reactions in the brain to activate it. And certain emotions . . . The only Mangekyou cases documented in the scroll involved the user killing a loved one.

The ultimate mixture of hatred and love.

I stopped letting Sasuke come to watch me train. It's strange to admit, but the emotions required to produce the Mangekyou Sharingan make you see the world differently. If Sasuke had been with me while I was training for it . . . I don't know what I would have done. It hadn't taken me long to grow impatient with myself. Simulating the emotions in my mind wasn't producing results fast enough, and the prospect of an easier road was beginning to tempt me.

Just one person. One . . . beloved . . . person.

And I could reach the height. Know myself, what I was and _why _I was.

I was almost never home during those days. When I was home or at work, my father was watching me so carefully I felt like a prisoner in my own life. Always he asked after my health, out of worry, but also because he sensed his prized son and heir was slipping through his fingers.

I _was_ slipping away. I was dying, slowly, inside. Every mission I undertook, I became less and less _Itachi _and more a creature who acted only according to the desires of others. My body was acting on its own, moving as I'd trained it, while my heart was buried somewhere cold and hopeless.

Then came the mission where I almost slipped away entirely. I . . . the details of that mission aren't clear to me, even to this day. My mindset during that time . . . everything was a blur. Gray and hazed over. The strain of too many sleepless nights and overuse of _chakra. _Our mission was to thwart an assassination on a Fire Country noble. Lady Aki, who ruled in her dead husband's stead. I was with ANBU, acting in conjunction with a Jounin team---Shisui's team. He had made Jounin not long after I did. Crawling along the ceiling, I sighted the assassin coming around the corner in the hall long before my comrades did. The hall was dark, but I could smell his fear. Though I could barely see his face, I knew he was young; a boy.

I was upon him before my comrades even noticed his presence. He was quick; he slid out from beneath me. I went hurtling after him down the hall, onto a terrace where the lanterns were lit. Knocked him down, crouched over him while he lay stunned. Raised the knife.

Hesitated.

The face below me was mine.

_A shadow of me, _I remember thinking in horror.

He hadn't copied my face with any _jutsu---_I was wearing the ANBU mask---but in my mind's eye he was what I'd once been. A boy, who'd come to this place to kill in cold blood.

A terrifying question came to me: _What if I were in his place? Would I surrender myself to die? Isn't it the fate of the weak to die? _

Lanterns swung over us, shifting the red-yellow glow back and forth. I wavered.

And then . . . it came to me. An answer. The first lesson I ever taught myself.

_Yes. If I were weak, I'd die. It's the order of life. _

_But I'm strong. I hate. And this boy, rank with fear, is already dead. _

I slashed his throat.

It was Shisui who pulled me off him. I was covered in blood, and shaking.

"Idiot!" he bellowed in my ear. "We could have questioned him!"

Then I tore free of him, turning. "Don't touch me." I still held the knife.

I was shaking with excitement. A nameless energy filling me. Here was someone I loved, who loved me. And I wanted to kill him. I could have, my certainty was so clear in that moment.

But he slapped me hard across the face. And, while my eyes were still filled with stars from the pain, held me so tight against him I couldn't breathe.

"Shit. Itachi. Don't . . . EVER . . ." He had no idea what to say. I think he knew, then, where my path was headed. Knew it had already taken hold of me beyond any hope of return.

But when we returned to the village later, he said nothing to my father.

**OoO OoO OoO**

The power I had tasted on that mission, in that moment, was the precursor to the Mangekyou Sharingan. To put that feeling into words . . . it's near to impossible. It's standing on the threshold between winter and summer, feeling the sun on your face and knowing you will be warm if you step through. Then your blood cools, and the door shuts, and you are left standing frozen in a colorless hell, so hollow you would crack if anyone touched you.

Once you've tasted that height, you can never stop reaching for it.

I killed Shisui on a warm night in autumn.

It was . . .

My parents caught me sneaking out before the dawn of that day. I claimed it was for a mission---one whose secret nature I could not divulge because my father was not in ANBU. He reminded me of my duties and told me where my loyalties should lie. I listened, I nodded, but his words meant nothing to me.

In reality, there wasn't any mission. I spent the day preparing myself for what I knew I had to do. When night fell . . . I was ready. I went into it with a clear mind.

Shisui was following me. Trailing me, as I knew my father had asked him to do, because my father had sensed the lie. I let my friend follow me for a ways, through the Uchiha compound, until I came to the stone bridge we'd jumped off of as children. There I stopped, and stood staring down at my reflection until Shisui finally showed himself.

"You knew I was there all along," he accused me, coming to stand beside me. He rested his elbows on the bridge wall, looking downriver as he spoke.

I smiled. Shisui always had a knack for stating the obvious. "My eyes are as good as yours," I said.

He sighed, shaking his head and still refusing to look at me. "Your eyes are cold and sad," he told me. His words were simple, but coming from a young man who wasn't comfortable with speaking his heart they were heavy indeed. He understood me so well.

"I _am _sad," I answered him. "So sad. Even with you beside me, I'm alone." I meant every word. I was already grieving for him.

The human heart is a wonder. It can turn to steel even as it breaks.

Shisui nodded slowly. Once again, he could say nothing to me. I was an abyss he knew nothing could fill.

"Let's run, Shisui," I said quietly. "On the water. Like we once did."

When we were children, and the world had color and I hadn't learned what real strength was.

We jumped, into the river, and went racing beneath the hunter's moon. Feet splashing softly on the surface. Gentle brush of wind on our faces.

He was always faster. He ran ahead . . .

I . . . can't speak of it. What it felt like to watch his last breath rise through the water until it burst silver on the surface . . . That is the deepest pain I've known.

And I won't speak of it. That memory is for me alone.

I gained everything that night. And wept, for the last time.

**End of Chapter 4**

_Yamisui: Stay tuned Chapter 5: "Testing the Limits." (About the Prozac, better double the dosage.)_


	5. Testing The Limits

_Yamisui: Yes, I have read Poe._

**OoO---SCARLET---OoO**

**OoO---OoO---Chapter 4: Testing the Limits---OoO---OoO**

After killing Shisui I went mad.

I didn't scream or rave. Nor did I destroy my clan in any violent fit of rage. When I did _that, _I was perfectly sane.

No. This was another kind of madness.

It was fortunate that I'd already forged Shisui's suicide note before I killed him, because afterward I would not have been capable of it. I climbed out of the river, spent, and sank dripping onto the stone walkway on the other side of the wall. Water from my sodden sleeves kept trickling down my arms and over my hands. I kept rubbing my palms against my pants; imagining in my horror that the water was blood.

After colorless years, I was seeing red again. Red enough to last a lifetime. The moon itself wept bloody tears.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hot darkness swallowed me.

When I opened them again, the moon had set. It was a blessing; with the light gone my clothes no longer dripped scarlet. Slowly, painstakingly, I rose to my feet. My hands and knees were shaking. It felt as if my vision were shaking, too. It was the beginning of the change in _dojutsu, _altering the focus of my eyes. I'd read about it before.

No sooner had I straightened to stand than I found myself doubling over again, vomiting. My knees hit the pavement with a bruising thud. On all fours I crawled away from the soiled ground and bowed over further, touching my forehead to the stone. It was clean and cold, like a hand on my brow.

"Shisui," I whispered.

Then I pushed myself to my feet again. This time I didn't fall. If I didn't get up, move on, what I had done would be for nothing.

I found a bucket nearby and used river water to clean the soiled walkway. It would dry before dawn, and leave no trace. Then I staggered home.

No one saw me. If they had, I would have killed them.

As it was, I was able to climb in through my open window, remove my filthy clothes, and crawl into bed without waking anyone in the house.

I wanted to sleep. Part of me even wanted to die.

But I kept breathing. I lay on my stomach, pressing my face into my pillow. And because I was bold enough to live, madness took me again.

Blood beat a deafening tattoo in my brain, in my temples, in the veins stretched taut in my throat. I thought it was Shisui's heart, beating in my head, and the hair on my neck rose in horror. My own heart throbbed with grief too terrible to bear. I was chained in place; weighed down by the choice I'd made, of which there could be no unmaking.

The world spun and tilted behind my eyes, a maelstrom of _chakra _in my skull, dragging me over the edge of sanity again and again, each time plunging me to new depths of fear. But all through this, though I clutched the sheets to keep from tilting over each edge, I was dimly aware of my purpose. Aware that I mustn't wake anyone.

So the screams that contorted my face were smothered and silent. No one heard them.

Not even me.

**OoO OoO OoO**

Some time before dawn, I woke covered in sweat, like one does when a fever breaks. Carefully I eased over onto my side, wiping away the hair stuck to my forehead. I sat up and looked at my face in my window. Activated my Sharingan.

But I couldn't see it well. I slid out of bed and padded across the wood floor for a closer look.

"Itachi."

At the sound of my mother's voice, I turned around so fast that my head reeled, and I was forced to lean a hand against the wall to keep from stumbling.

She rushed toward me, wearing a look of concern, and clasped me by the shoulders, supporting me over to the bed to sit down. She leaned over me, laying a hand across my brow. I wanted very badly to flinch---the gentleness of the gesture repulsed me. Her face, so familiar with its crown of black hair and doe-eyes lined with good humor . . . She seemed a different creature entirely.

Her fragility made my flesh crawl.

"You're sick," she murmured, finally straightening and resting her hands on her hips. "I'll tell them you won't be going."

I lifted my head sharply, squinting as the room whirled. "Who?" I asked hoarsely. "ANBU?" Alarm shot through me in a hot wave.

"They had a mission for you, but you will stay here and rest," she ordered. Then she left me and walked down the hall. I remained tense, gripping the edge of the mattress and straining to hear. There were voices from the receiving hall, conferring in a civil tone.

Then silence.

When the silence went unbroken, I heaved a shaky sigh and lay down again. My mother didn't know it, but I had asked if ANBU was at our door for an entirely different reason. If they had found me out, I would not have known what to do next.

I buried my face in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut again. The truth was, even if they didn't find me out, I had no idea what I would do next. What does one do with that much power? What does one really _do_?

I was like a bird who had lived all its life in a cage, only to find the cage sprung open and to realize that so much else lay beyond the prison. Does it stay? Is having the freedom to choose _enough, _or must it take wing and see the sky?

But I was not a bird. And my wings weren't clipped.

In the end, I was ready to escape.

**OoO OoO OoO**

When I woke up later, it was already mid-morning. I rose and found my strength returned. I washed, I ate something. My sanity had also returned. But I was unnerved, not relieved. Had everything I'd suffered the previous night been for nothing? I remembered clearly what I'd done, and the pain of it was still with me. But I was frightened---frightened that the power that had driven me mad had somehow deserted me.

An unfounded fear, but not one I could ignore.

I sat down alone, on the back porch, to think. But Sasuke joined me. And for once, I was glad of the company. Somehow, it brought me peace to be with him. To sit beside Sasuke---my other, purer self---when my own heart was shattered into splinters.

"'_Tou-san _is always talking about you," he said with childish frankness, staring glumly at the dust on the street in front of us.

"Am I . . . unpleasant?" I found myself asking. I was curious, for the first time, to hear what he thought of me from his lips instead of reading it from his behavior.

It's absurd the things that become important when you stand on the brink of becoming a new creature. I was asking him something so simple, but in my mind it was already a question about the past. By that point, you see, the idea of what I would do with my newfound power was beginning to take shape.

From Sasuke's troubled silence, I could tell he knew much was amiss with me. I was indeed unpleasant. And I detected, beneath his confusion, traces of the hate-love that only rivalry can breed.

"That's not so bad," I said lightly, leaning forward to rest my arms on my knees. "_Shinobi _usually live as hated people. Because they're said to be a problem." The ghost of Uchiha Setsuna, speaking through my lips.

He was right, my former Sensei. We were a grand mistake. Every one of us, striving toward a purpose because, to begin with, we had none.

Life without meaning is its own brand of hell.

I laughed, short and light and bitter. "To be top notch is really something to think about," I expounded. "To have strength is to become isolated and arrogant. Even though at first you were only chasing a dream."

Then I stole a glance at Sasuke. His little face was a study in misery. But not for himself; for me.

He, with his child's simplicity, had a peace I'd learned to detest and long for all at once. And even though he didn't understand, he was sad for me. Like Shisui, standing next to me on the bridge. That look cut me to the quick.

I had to turn away. "You and I are special," I told him. "To overcome your barriers, you and I have to continue living together."

_And I will make you my creature._

We were special, my shadow and I. And I was intrigued, in realizing that, to realize also that we needed no one else. _I_ needed no one else. My clan, my village, meant nothing at all. Just him. A brother; an equal. A soul attuned to mine.

I smiled sadly at Sasuke.

"Always together, you and I," I murmured, "even if it means hating each other. That's what being an older brother means."

But he wasn't looking at me any more. He'd turned at the sound of wood banging from somewhere inside the house. And then the sound as they called me out, demanding to speak with me.

I knew, already, why they'd come. And the knowing gave me a queer sort of confidence.

_Yes, I know why you're here. I've killed. And I can do it again. What would you say to me?_

"We had two men missing at last night's meeting," they said when I came to answer the door. "Why did you not come?"

Uchiha Araki, Uchiha Itsumo, Uchiha Masaki. My kinsmen. Their eyes were full of hate.

_Why do you ask, when you know already? _I thought, anger flashing through me white-hot. I couldn't answer them. I wanted to spit in their faces.

"I can understand," Itsumo said, "that you've been occupied with various missions since you joined the ANBU. Your father also told us that, and he's looking after you. However, we have no intention of treating you any differently."

_I am different, and you know it. Or you would not be hiding fear behind your outrage._

"I understand. I'll be more careful from now on. Please leave." _Before I kill you._

Their shadows loomed closer still, oppressive and aggravating. I stood my ground, hating them.

"Bu before we go, there's one more thing you need to answer," Masaki said, eyes narrowed to slits. He was older than the other two, and of higher rank in the police force. He was all business. "It's regarding the suicide by drowning in the Nakano River last night . . . of Uchiha Shisui."

My heart leaped to my throat. But instead of fear, I was beginning to feel strangely excited. They knew. Of course they knew. Would they try to take me? I could test my strength on them . . .

"The other man absent last night was Shisui," Itsumo elaborated. "I thought that you considered Shisui as a true brother."

My emotions had become as inconstant as the tides on the shore. At this mention of Shisui, my blood turned to ice in my veins and my heart clenched. Such pain. Unbearable. I closed my eyes briefly, not wanting to see him die again in my memory.

When I opened them again, I felt drained. "I see. I haven't met with him recently. That is sad to hear."

A silence stretched between us. They were puzzled---they could see my grief was real. Behind me, I heard Sasuke shifting from one foot to the other, nervous.

At last, Itsumo swallowed and volunteered, "Thus we, the police force, have decided to investigate this incident fully."

"An investigation," I echoed softly. They knew it was me. My grief puzzled them, but they knew. They only needed proof.

"This is Shisui's suicide note," Masaki announced, holding up a folded sheet of paper I recognized immediately. "We already finished the handwriting analysis; there's no doubt it's his handwriting."

"If it's suicide, what's left to investigate?" I asked. Thanks to years of wearing the mask of stoicism, I was able to keep the ragged edge from my voice. My head was pounding; would they never shut _up_? I hated the sound of Shisui's name.

"For those who can use the Sharingan, it's quite easy to forge one's handwriting," Itsumo pointed out. His eyes were already tightening the noose around my throat.

They handed me the note I'd forged.

_I'm tired of the duties._

_There is no future for the Uchiha or for me._

_I cannot walk the path any further._

I stared at it. It was indeed a suicide note I'd written. Only it was the epitaph for my conscience, not for Shisui.

"He was feared as Shisui of the Mirage," Masaki intoned. "One of the most talented Uchiha. He was someone who would do any mission for the clan."

Itsumo's black eyes bored into mine. "I doubt a man like him would leave something like this behind and die."

My hand began to tremble. I lowered the paper, denting it as my fingers squeezed into a fist. _A man who does any mission? Is that all he was to you? A tool? _Rage surged through me. _I am sick to death of your gods of duty._

My face burned as I glared at them. "It's not wise to judge others by your preconceptions and their appearances."

"I'm going to leave the matter to you," Itsumo informed me. "Take the note to the ANBU and request that they investigate as well."

I said nothing as they shifted, reluctantly turning to go. Were they punishing me, assigning me the task of solving the murder I'd committed? My own guilt was greater than anything their accusations could inflict. They left me with a warning: "We have connections with ANBU, also. If you hide anything, we'll know immediately."

I looked down at the floor. Watched dust motes settle in the sun. Their backs were turned, so they didn't see my face contort.

I couldn't seem to keep my emotions in check. It no longer seemed worth the effort; they were deaf and blind and stupid.

The words came spilling out. "Why don't you be more direct?"

All three came to a halt at once, like marionettes on the same string. Looked at me over their shoulders. I knew then they'd been waiting for this; their eyes wheeled red with the Sharingan. They had been playing upon my anger to get me to confess.

"So you're suspicious of me," I murmured. My own eyes changed.

Turning, Itsumo snarled, "Yes, brat."

Turning, Masaki threatened, "Listen, Itachi: if you betray the clan, you won't go unpunished."

My heart turned to flame. And I ceased to think.

They flew at me. I became like a cornered beast---a beast with bite. With _taijutsu, _with _ninjutsu, _I pushed them back from my doorway, into the street.

In doing the unthinkable---to attack one's clan members---I found an unexpected exhilaration. When they lay beaten around me, and I knelt out of sheer exhaustion in their midst, I thought, _I've broken the pattern. And seen a glimpse of the possible._

With a grunt, I pushed myself to my feet.

"As I've said just now . . . don't judge others . . . simply by your preconceptions and their appearance." I swayed where I stood, panting; a weary god glaring at ants. "You assumed . . . that I have patience."

My exhaustion granted me a kind of drunken exultance. And my shattered heart came spilling out as spite. "The clan, the clan," I sneered raggedly. "You all fail to measure your own capacity, and to see the depth of mine. And as a result you lie beaten here."

"Shisui was told to keep an eye on you," Masaki said darkly, attempting to push himself into a sitting position. "Within half a year of your entrance into the ANBU, your actions and speech were getting stranger than ever. What exactly are you thinking?"

_What are you thinking? _Amazing how no one thought to ask until I became a danger! People acknowledge power, and only power. Deep down, we all know there's nothing else.

I rounded on Masaki. "You hold onto the organization, your clan, your name. These things limit us and our capacities. These things deserve to be cast aside." My voice lowered to an impassioned whisper. "It is foolish to fear what we've yet to see and know."

I don't know what I might have done then, if my father hadn't appeared to stop me. In fact, everything might have ended then and there if he hadn't. I might have killed the three who'd come to arrest me, but I was weak from the night before, and tired. I could not have taken on the entire clan then without being subdued and apprehended.

But thanks to my father's stupid pride in his heir, I survived to fight another day.

"Stop this," he told me wearily, as if I were some naughty child he found it a chore to rebuke. "What in the world is wrong? You've been acting strange lately."

I had the sudden, wild urge to laugh. But I didn't, knowing I might never stop once I'd started. There was a time when I was _proud_ that the dutiful mask I wore fooled everyone. But now I had no pride left, and the mask was lined with cracks. I just wanted to be _seen _for once. My true face.

"Nothing's strange," I told my father heavily. "I'm just carrying out my duty . . ." I faltered---the word _duty _was like acid on my tongue.

"Then, why did you not come last night?" he pressed. So naïve. He must have loved me, or he wouldn't have been so weak.

At last I finished my sentence: ". . . in order to reach the height."

"The what?"

Of coursehe didn't understand. Of _course. _How could he? His stupid loyalty to me was as much a dagger in my heart as my kinsmen's accusations. My eyes flared crimson. _SEE me. SEE me! For once, open your eyes and SEE what I AM!_

My fist rose. In a blur, I'd snapped a _kunai _backward, sending it on a crow's path behind me. There it embedded itself in wood, dead center on its target.

The Uchiha emblem.

_In order to test the limits . . ._

". . . of my capacity," I finished aloud. My tone could have frozen hell. "I've lost all hope for this pathetic clan. You forget what is most important to you because you cling to something small like your clan. True change can't be made if it's bound by laws and limitations, predictions and imagination." It was like someone else was speaking through my lips. Then I remembered that Orochimaru had also said this. And that he'd spoken of an organization, whose members were above laws and strictures. Suddenly, his proposition began to appeal to me.

"What arrogance!" my father barked. "Enough already. If you continue this nonsense, we will have to take you to jail. So what now?"

A heavy silence fell between us. The gravity of the situation washed over me in a hot wave of alarm.

I could not go to jail. I could _not. _It would have been easy for me to say my very life had become a prison to me, but it would not have been the same. Do you know what _shinobi _prisons are like? Perhaps the most infamous is the jail in the Village Hidden in the Clouds, but that is another story entirely. The point is that I wanted to investigate Orochimaru's organization. And I was determined that nothing---no one---would stop me.

"We can't put up with you any more," Itsumo snarled, on his feet at last and glaring at me. "Captain! Please order an arrest!"

"Stop, brother!" Sasuke cried.

I closed my eyes. There it was.

My way out.

I sank to my knees before them. I bowed in the street, my forehead touching stone, and I heard them shift in surprise.

"It was not me who killed Shisui," I told them, "but for the words I have spoken I am deeply sorry." My voice was indeed thick with sorrow, for speaking Shisui's name made my eyes burn with tears.

Then I waited, keeping my head bowed. I could tell my father's reaction simply by his silence. He knew. But I was his future. And his child. He was a proud man, who couldn't bear to hate anything he viewed as a part of himself. He should have known; if I was ever a part of him, the ties had been frayed relentlessly over the years until they severed. In my heart, I was no longer Uchiha.

"Lately, he has been busy from ANBU missions, and has been worn out," my father said at last.

"Captain!" Itsumo protested.

"ANBU is a battalion under the Hokage's direct authority," my father continued. "Even the police forces cannot arrest them without an official order. Besides, I will take full responsibility for my son." He could not keep the weariness from creeping into his tone when voicing that last reason. I might have been his future, but I was also his burden. Poetic justice.

He bowed his proud head before his kinsmen. "Please."

That was the final deciding factor. In humbling himself before them, my father had vouched for my character in a way that even laws and strictures could not. I will never, to this day, understand why anyone is impressed by humility.

"Understood, Sir," Itsumo consented. He turned away from me, and strode off with his comrades. But before he turned, I saw the line of his cheek and brow in silhouette. He was sad. It reminded me of Shisui---Shisui with his sorrowful acceptance of me even when he sensed the dark path I was on. Except my kinsman was sorry for my father.

"Itachi, come inside," my father called to me, already heading for our porch.

Still kneeling in the road, I cast him a look of pure hatred. I hated his receding back. I hated his weariness. I hated the symbol he wore, and in that instant imagined a _kunai _embedding itself not in wood, but flesh.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I think, after that, my father began losing hope in me.

Certainly he didn't trust me. He watched me like a hawk. And for a while, he would not allow me to go out on missions. I was to rest. As if disillusionment is a disease you can recover from.

I stalked the halls of our house on tiger's feet, restless and ready to explode at a word. But the people in my family began handling me as if I were so fragile a word might shatter me. My mother's kindness became stifling. My father's choice to overlook the changes in me reached the point where he could hardly speak to me at all. He had decided to ignore the darkness building to a crux in me, but in doing so I became invisible to him, because the darkness had become who I _was. _His deliberate inattention made me feel like a ghost in my own home.

And Sasuke . . . Sasuke, with his incessant asking. He wanted me to train with him. At the time, my temper simmered constantly, and I hated him for his devotion. _I'm a prisoner. You have your freedom, because your heart is warm and you follow their pattern. Stupid little brother, why should I care what you do? _

But I never told him these things outright. I thought he was so empty of hatred that he could never understand me . . . I thought that. Until it came to me at last: a way to teach him hatred.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I can't say when the idea officially began to germinate in my mind. But I _can_ say when it was that it finally took hold of me. It was the day my father told me I seemed well enough to resume missions. On that morning, I awoke with a clear sense of purpose, and a clear head. I, Itachi, was going to seek out Orochimaru. And the time could not have been more ripe.

The Rice Country was in turmoil. Civil war had broken out, with the new feudal lord on one side and the Fuma Clan on the other. I knew immediately upon learning the news that it was Orochimaru opposing them, using the new lord as a puppet through which to wage his war. Obviously he intended to stamp the clan out to cement his hold over the country.

It was almost as if he'd timed his battle to accommodate me. I knew exactly where to find him.

But it was going to require a risk on my part. I was going to have to go missing for a while.

The morning of my departure found me seated on the front porch, fastening my sandals. I wasn't taking anything with me---no food or supplies, which might arouse suspicion. I carried soldier pills in my pouches and _kunai, _and nothing else. I _needed _nothing else. I was a weapon, and I knew my strength.

I also knew my weakness. Its name was Sasuke.

My weakness found me sitting there, and called my name.

"Can we train with _shuriken_ today?" he asked.

I half-turned. He looked so hopeful. "I'm busy," I answered. "It would be better if you asked Father."

He held his ground; he was stubborn. "But you're the best with _shuriken. _Even a kid like me can see that. You always treat me like a burden."

_You ARE my burden, _I thought, eyeing him intently. _Or, you will be. I'm not ready for you just yet. _

_All I can teach you now is patience. To learn true strength from me, you must wait a bit longer._

I waved him closer. He came, wide-eyed and obedient. Then I poked him hard in the forehead. I wanted an equal, not a shadow. Let him see what obedience earned him.

Then I rose to my feet. "I don't have time to look after you today," I told him. I left him standing there, muttering something resentful and rubbing at his forehead. By that time, no part of me wanted to stay, to reject the destiny I was chasing. Not even for him.

After all, I was chasing it for him, as well. To save him from his own weakness.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I never made it to the Rice Country. I cut through the cemetery in the morning, and spent the day running through the forest to the northwest of Konoha, beneath a dreamlike canopy of green. It was cool there, and the wind of my passage rushed against my face, cooling my skin and calming me. Another brand of calm was stealing through me at the same time, from the inside out. For so long I'd been waiting, like a worm in its cocoon, for the change to come. And now I knew what it was, and I was waking from that long dream.

But come dusk, when the shadows lengthened and the dying sun burned the treetops, my quest ended before it had even begun. Ahead, where the forest thinned into a clearing, someone stood waiting for me.

He measured a head above my height, cloaked in black with red clouds embroidered on the cloth. He wore a straw hat that hid his face in shade, but I could still see the intensity of the gaze fixed upon me from beneath the brim. He stood motionless as a pillar in the shade of the thick branches. And he stopped my slow advance with one sentence.

"You will not go to Orochimaru."

I knew this interloper wasn't from Konoha. The Akatsuki have a way about us that sets us apart: we do not kneel; we do not bow. And we speak our minds without preamble.

"Who are you, that I should listen?" I asked.

The stranger's eyes flickered. "You would be wasted on him. But . . . I think you knew that."

I rose slowly from the defensive stance I'd assumed. He seemed to read my face like a scroll.

"He has fallen into . . . disfavor with us," he continued. "He begins to forget our ambitions for his own. And he would have you, with your bloodline limit, give him your servitude. And your flesh."

"I seek the strong," I replied. "If your organization is stronger than the one you warn me against, why don't you kill him?" A muscle in my wrist was twitching---there were _kunai _inside the sleeves of my black Uchiha jacket, and I was ready to draw one if need be.

The stranger's cold eyes narrowed. "It might interest you to know that even in his deviance he serves us. Whether he wishes to or not. Just as being part of us serves _his_ purposes. He has laboratory facilities spread across four countries. Whom do you think supplied him with replacements, for the resources he lost access to after he fled Konohasixteen years ago?"

I sensed the same ruthless truth in this man that Orochimaru possessed. And it gave me hope.

"I know what you've done," he said, unexpectedly. "We have spies in Konoha. You have already made one sacrifice to gain power. But your situation is unique, for your actions have gone unpunished. Under the shadow of your village's shelter, you are still bound to the path you were raised to walk. So there remains one barrier between you and the Akatsuki."

A muscle in my jaw quirked. I knew what barrier it was.

And in my heart, I had already killed them.

Then he spoke the words that forever linked my fate to his:

"A man can't know himself until he knows his weaknesses. If you desire true power, you must let go of what you've _become, _and start learning what you _are._"

Without a word, I turned from him. Shed my jacket, dropping the Uchiha emblem into the dirt. And started back to the village.

**OoO OoO OoO**

They let me in through the gates without question. It was laughably easy. They saw a genius and a boy and a Jounin instead of the seething blackness of my intent. I strode down the familiar, colorless streets, looking at nothing and no one.

Then I came to the Uchiha compound. Fan emblems, painted or sewn onto everything. My chest burned, as if I could still feel the scars from where they'd tried to stitch their emblem into my soul. In the peculiar shadows of evening, time lengthened and distorted.

I began killing almost without thought.

I strolled down the walkways, along fence after fence, and with my own two hands I slashed the throat of every one I met. The eerie calm that had stolen over me in the forest that day hardened into a core of steel, so that every familiar face, every gasp, every cry, every gurgled last breath struck me but did not penetrate my flesh. I used my Sharingan on them and they dropped where I passed. The power was extraordinary. It was as if I were wearing Shisui's death like armor, and no one and nothing could touch me.

I had already killed my soul, on a moonlit night on the river. There was nothing left to touch me.

Or so I thought.

**OoO OoO OoO**

I carved myself a path straight to the police headquarters. By virtue of the swift deaths I'd dealt---to those who were so stupidly surprised by my betrayal that some even died smiling---no alarm had been raised yet. I strode directly in. Itsumo was there. And the others, who'd accused me. I came in boldly, with the blood of our kinsmen splattered across my shins and forearms. In places there were red hand-prints, where some had dug their fingers into me, as if touching me would save them from my blades.

The police force, gathered for a meeting, was not the herd of lambs I'd slaughtered on the streets. They knew immediately what I'd done. They flew at me, snarling vengeance. But they died. The Mangekyou Sharingan felled them like trees---great proud oaks axed asunder, lying pathetically on the wood floor and weeping, screaming, clawing at themselves. Their minds were broken even before I broke their flesh.

From that point on, it was easy. So easy.

No alarm was raised. That may sound unreasonable, but it wasn't. There is just no way to describe the speed with which I killed. It seems unreal, even to me, and I know my capabilities. I _learned _my capabilities on that day. That slow. Eternal. Day.

I was a footstep in a doorway. A _katana_ edge. A dark hand blurring as it slashed each throat. A slice. A puncture. A flick of wrist to spatter red drops like jewels from the end of _kunai. _

Did any of it touch me? None.

Children, women, adults, the old. Everyone bleeds the same.

Heads rolled. Hearts burst like overripe fruit.

At last, when the hunter's moon rose round and full as a pearl, I crouched atop a high pole, peering down through a web of wires to survey what I'd done. It was . . . I felt . . .

I had killed everyone who had returned home on time. Except for one house.

My house was large and set back on its own, quieter street. I saw no signs of alarm from within, though lantern-light glowed through the panes of the windows. They didn't know yet. Good.

I heard from afar the sound of small feet pattering over the dirt. I knew who it was, even though from that distance I couldn't see his face. He had been absent all day. But instead of rushing to confront him now, I turned and leaped down from my eyrie. There was work to be done.

My father's back was to me when I entered. He sat across from my mother, at the low kitchen table.

At the sight of me, my mother's smile froze and her face went death-white. I blinked, standing on the threshold and grasping the door frame to keep from swaying where I stood. I was suddenly, poignantly reminded of the feudal lord and his wife, whom we'd assassinated. Past and present blurred.

'_They're the same,' _I thought, and the realization staggered me. _'Those we killed, and these two sitting here. All of them, the same.' _Even familiarity, the ghost of love, couldn't sway me. I knew that now.

My father spoke at last, rising to stand. "Itachi. Where have you gone." He didn't turn yet, but there was very little question in his words. "What have you done?" he asked when I kept silent. But he knew.

"Itachi," my mother said softly, rising as well and approaching us.

I could answer neither of them. I stood rooted in place. It was as if I'd become something mute and unmoving---a pale statue in ANBU garb who'd forgotten human speech, capable of nothing more than staring at a back he hated while trickling scarlet from the edge of the two _katana _clenched in his fists. Was it fear that made me hesitate? Perhaps. These two were the last impediment . . . but then, at the last, I felt the connection between us. The ties of blood. Now that they were seeing me for what I really was.

As if of its own volition, one of my feet shifted forward, toward my father's back. He turned, at last.

"What have you done." He repeated it in that same non-questioning tone, flat and dead. His eyes were aflame now. He was going to do it. He was ready to fight Itachi, at last. Not the genius, not the heir, not the ANBU nor the Jounin, nor the beloved son.

There were no more names left between us.

His Sharingan wheeled into life. His hands formed a seal.

My hand moved before his. The _katana _point cut an arrow's straight path for his chest. It struck my mother instead.

The blow of her death broke my father's concentration. He caught her, and his red eyes turned downward in a stare of disbelief. I made no immediate move to follow the attack; I merely stood there, panting. Something about this death had made me wearier than the others. I waited as my father lowered her to the ground, then rose with murder in his eyes.

Then I struck him with the Mangekyou Sharingan.

With _Tsukiyomi, _the bane of sanity. In it, I showed him what I'd done.

"What is this?" he cried. "Where am I? Itachi!"

My voice came out glacial and sharp, penetrating the darkness in which I'd imprisoned him. "This is nowhere. This is hell. This is emptiness. Know it, and despair."

"Why?" he roared, clutching himself and sinking to his knees. "Why are they all gone? Why are they all dead? Why did you have to take everything?"

Despite myself, I swallowed hard. _To show you what it means to be truly alone. To show you the world through my mind. To make you UNDERSTAND me . . . _was what I wanted to say. But I hated him too much to show him that weakness. Instead, I answered, "I am only doing as you've taught me."

His jaw clenched so tight in agony that his breath whistled between his teeth. "I did not teach you this," he hissed.

"_The greatest goals require sacrifice. No power without a price; no strength without cost_." My face was a mask of ice. "Did you not teach me that? _Shinobi _are not born powerful to make martyrs of themselves."

His voice dropped to a whimper, like a child's. "Even . . . even Sasuke?"

"I won't end his life," I said. "But his soul I will take."

I lifted the second _katana _and swung.

**OoO OoO OoO**

When it was finished, exhaustion claimed me so quickly I was absurdly tempted to lie down on my own bed and sleep. Part of it was the strain of using the Mangekyou Sharingan. Part of it was that portion of me that I couldn't erase. The connection I'd felt at the last.

_I am truly alone now, _I thought. _In flesh and spirit. _

I don't know what moved me to do so, but I carried them into their bedroom. I planned to lay them on their sleeping mats, side by side, as if this were some ordinary night from which morning would wake them.

But in the end I was distracted by the sound of my brother calling for them.

"Sasuke . . . Don't come in . . ." My voice sounded hoarse and strange. Like a man who hadn't slept in weeks.

He came in anyway.

"Father! Mother!" he cried. Briefly, I averted my gaze. Sighed. He was still so very much a child. So innocent.

It was time to rob him of that.

My eyes flashed crimson at him.

"Brother! Father and mother are . . . ! Why! Why! Who the hell . . . this . . ."

He was becoming hysterical. This wouldn't do. He must listen and listen well to what I had to say, or he would never understand. And if he never understood, he would never become the equal I longed for.

I snapped a small _shuriken _past his face. It sliced a line of scarlet across his thin shoulder, then embedded itself in the door behind him.

And still he looked at me with those awful innocent eyes. Wide and blameless. I couldn't stand it. I hated his innocence and craved it all at once. I wanted it gone. To make him what I'd already become, so he couldn't cause me pain by loving me.

"Foolish little brother," I murmured. Not without sadness.

Then I took a deep breath, and in the throes of my power, showed him what hell was.

When it was over, he lay trailing spittle from one corner of his mouth. I waited as he lifted his head. To see how he would judge me.

"Why?" he asked softly. "Why . . . did you . . . ?"

Twisted relief seeped through me. He wanted to understand. Because he could not envision me doing this without reason. I was filled with hope for him.

But now was not the time for me to show it. I had to break him before I could reshape him into something strong. "It was to measure my capacity," I told him calmly.

"To test your . . . capacity?" he pressed. "That's all? That's the only reason . . . you killed everyone . . . for that?"

Was it? I lowered my gaze. Probing the depths of my own intentions. No, it wasn't the only reason. There was so much more. But he was a child, who had never killed before. I doubt he'd even drawn blood. Time would have to cure him of his lack of insight. Time, and what I was about to tell him.

"It was essential," I answered.

"That's . . . CRAP!" he cried. And rushed me.

Adrenaline washed through me. Excitement. Even as I struck him down with one fist. I knew, then. He was destined to judge me, one day, as an equal. He had already learned hatred. He wanted revenge.

He hit the wood floor with a bruising thud. When he pushed himself up again, his eyes shimmered with tears, and his nose with snot.

He fled me, mewling like a wounded animal. Threw open the sliding doors with a bang. I matched him stride for stride. Cut him off in the street.

For a moment, I just stood there, letting my presence quiet him. Even terror stricken, even with our parents' blood still drying on my hands, he turned to me, like a flower to the sun. I was all he had now.

_Listen to me, _I said with my silence. _And ask why. Never stop asking why. _

"You can't be my brother," he wailed, "because . . ."

I had no patience for denial. He had to accept what I'd done. That _I _had done it.

"The brother you wanted to spend time with has done this," I cut him off, "to ascertain your capacity. I acted the older brother, as you desired. To see if that potential lies hidden in _you._ You found me disagreeable and hated me. You continued wanting to surpass me, and for that, I will let you live . . . for my sake."

I told him then. I had to. To burn it forever into his mind.

"You can awaken the same Mangekyou Sharingan I can. However, there is a requirement." I lowered my gaze, fixed him hard with it. _Remember this. Remember it, _my eyes were saying. "You must kill . . . your closest friend. In order to become like me."

Again, I let my silence speak. Let the poisonous secret seep into his marrow. I could see him processing it. I could see his tongue searching for words, standing in the empty dust on a dead street.

"Ah . . . brother . . . brother, did you kill Shisui-_san_?"

My eyes narrowed. I no longer allowed myself the indulgence of lingering over that pain. I could not afford to. I was exhausted, and before me stood the last step in becoming what I was always meant to be.

"Thanks to him, I was able to obtain this 'eye.' At the main temple of the Nakano Shrine, on the far right side under the seventh _tatami _mat, is the clan's secret meeting place. There you will find what purpose the _dojutsu _of the Uchiha clan originally served." I felt the ghost of a wry smile twist my lips. "The real secret is written there." The smile sharpened, and hunger crept into my tone. "If you open your eyes to the truth . . . including myself, there will be three people who can handle the Mangekyou Sharingan. In that case . . . there would be a reason to let you live." I took a step toward him. Threatening. "Right now . . ."

He began to retreat, a high-pitched choking noise emitting from his throat. His pupils were round and pale as the moon.

"It would be worthless to kill someone like you, my foolish brother," I continued inexorably. "If you want to kill me, curse me! Hate me! Live with your unsightly cowardice, until you grow twisted. Run away, run, and cling to your pitiful life. And someday, when you have the same eyes I do, come before me."

I used the Mangekyou Sharingan, for the last time that night. And he dropped into the dust.

I left him lying there, cold as the corpses around him.

And I put him from my mind.

It was now my prerogative to escape Konoha. All was quiet, but soon someone cutting across the Uchiha quarters from above would look down from the rooftops or fence-lines and see the dead-strewn roads. Then the alarm would sound.

And beyond Konoha's gates, I suspected greater dangers than the Leaf awaited me. And also, great things.

I started running.

**End of Chapter 5**

_Yamisui: Stay tuned for chapter 6: "Akatsuki." I intend to fill in what the canon leaves out between Itachi's massacre and the near-present, ending ultimately with Itachi's encounter with Sasuke in Otafuku village. I believe there will be nine chapters total._


	6. Akatsuki

**OoO---SCARLET---OoO**

**OoO---OoO---Chapter 6: Akatsuki---OoO---OoO**

There was no sense of freedom after what I'd done. I'd thought there would be. When you cut your chains, aren't they supposed to fall away? If I was not happy with my clan, why should I be unhappy without them? I asked myself that, back then. I think it was the weakness of the human need to belong. I have joined Akatsuki, I may share its aims, but I do not belong to it. The ties we forge only serve to fetter the mind.

Back then, even though I had killed them, the weight had not lifted. All I felt was the sudden, driving urgency to _move. _It was as if, now that I'd set things in motion, my life had become an avalanche I couldn't stop. I had exchanged the shackles of Konoha, which would never let me run where I wished, for the curse of never doing anything _but _running

I made it all the way to Konoha's southern gate before the alarms finally sounded. That was how quickly I'd killed my clan; the moon was just setting as I scaled the massive wall. I panted as I ran, tired and disoriented. The sudden cacophony of noises echoing through the village confused me---outraged cries, screams, orders, people leaping across the rooftops searching for the killer. The confusion was an irritant. I didn't like that the commotion behind me reminded me of what I'd just done, because some level of me, some deeper core, knew that it was an unforgivable thing. That I deserved death.

I ran up the wall, gritting my teeth against the noise, wishing the muted thud of my sandals on the heavy wood would drown it out.

But once I'd scaled the wall and run down the other side, I descended into an eerie hush. Eager to drop into the safe darkness of the forest's embrace, I let myself fall the last twenty feet of the wall, landing in a crouch on a carpet of moss. I tensed; it wasn't the quietest of landings. Bizarrely, the sound had startled me. My throat went thick as I waited for someone to come after me, rain down judgment.

After what seemed an eternal few minutes, no one came. I stood up, slow and grim-faced. My knees ached, and so did my head. The quiet here was still as death. It was the empty quiet that falls briefly on a place, before it is overrun with danger. They might be coming for my death, but I was already dead to them. I swallowed against a dry throat and took off, heading north as fast as I could.

I wanted the man from Akatsuki to find me. But after nearly an hour of hurtling through the branches, I was still running by myself.

'_If he won't find me I'll go to his rival,' _I thought. I was hoping he wanted me enough to stop me from going to Orochimaru. If I could not find people like me, I sensed that I was going to run forever instead, a scared rogue wolf, preying on whatever he could and achieving nothing but survival. I wasn't an animal; I needed _more _than survival.

I needed a purpose.

**OoO OoO OoO**

Orochimaru found me first.

He found me twenty miles out from Konoha.

His voice floated down through the trees, sinuous and sly. "You've done it, haven't you." It was not a question.

My body, already strung taut with nerves from the night's bloody work, reacted immediately. Before my mind could form a verbal response, my fingers had flung eight _kunai _upward, toward the sound of his voice. They sang wickedly through the sleepy forest air, embedded themselves somewhere in wood above me with sharp, vicious impact.

"You've come to me," he said, in a deeper, condescending tone I didn't like. He coalesced from the green shadows of a tree at ground level; he'd taken shape from the mossy bark itself---the same _jutsu _he'd used to escape me the last time. But he wasn't running now. He'd caught me off guard, throwing his voice but approaching me from the side. And his gaze on me was nothing like a master's for his star pupil. Rather, it was like I was the meal he'd been starving for. As if now that he thought I'd finally stopped resisting him, I'd been reduced in his eyes to a living, speaking chunk of meat.

But I was not an animal. And I have no master.

"I'm going to Akatsuki," I answered, sinking my stance even lower to spring, like a cornered tiger. "If you are not with them, I want nothing from you."

He wore their black cloak, decorated with red clouds like blotches of blood. And a wide-brimmed straw hat, from which there dangled a single bell. On his hand he bore a ring with insignia on it that I couldn't read from that distance. He was dressed like one of them. But I remembered the other Akatsuki member's warning. They did not trust Orochimaru, and I would be wise not to trust him, either.

His lips stretched into a grin, and he stopped twenty feet away from me. "Oh, I think you wanted to find me. Or you would still be running."

Disappointment clenched into a knot in my chest. As I ran, I'd wanted two things and two things only: Akatsuki or the Leaf. But Orochimaru was the middle ground; the easy death where I wouldn't have to face those I'd wronged. I couldn't have explained at the time why I didn't want my death to be easy, but that's how it was. Ah . . . that's not to say that I want to die now, either. But even my death someday must have meaning, or I can't say that I've lived.

Before Orochimaru I straightened, squaring my shoulders. I was a man. What I had done had aged me beyond the possibility that I could ever be a child again. I must become the man I was meant to be. And he must see that, because he was the voice of my doubts.

"I will run until I reach Akatsuki," I said sharply. "If you are not Akatsuki, then I will pass you by."

His eyes narrowed, and for a brief instant I caught a gleam of fear. It gave me strength. I knew that if you had someone's fear, you had power over them. The Hyuuga I had killed in the arena. Sasuke. Those feeble teachers of mine, whose lessons trail after me like shadows.

I sprang forward.

And he convulsed, like a man wretching. The air between us seemed to waver. He struck at me, neck elongating like a serpent's. It was like a face from a kabuki stage, ghastly white and expressionless. Except the mouth yawned wide as it came at me, hungry and foul, fangs like needle points. Yawned and breath like cloying sweet wine, with a hint of rotting wet leaves brushed my cheek like a sly hand. Disgusting. _He's a poison, _I thought. _Burn it, purge it, raze it down. _

And then the clearing was full of dark shapes, black capes flocked with crimson clouds, fluttering like bats' wings as they swarmed me. It was an ambush.

Akatsuki had found me. And they were going to kill me.

Until this moment, I had always been fighting for a purpose. I never found joy in killing; only in the end the means brought if I had truly hated my opponent. But now my last hope was crushed, for Akatsuki didn't want me. There was no purpose left. And the thing that had been chained inside me, that killing my clan had not freed, snapped free. The forest air, the blades nestled in my palms, the sweat that trickled between my shoulder blades and down my temples . . . took on a queer intensity. It was as if the world was breathing me in, preparing to spit me out.

My last coherent thought before the clash was, _You will not spit me out. I will burst free of my own will._

There is a place, in battle, where you lose yourself and become everything that you are fighting against. Ordinary life is black and white and red; wrong and right and blood. But in battle, in the clashing of true strength on strength . . . you can find a place where the brilliance drowns everything out. Where you _become _your enemy's hatred, feed off it, swallow it whole. You and they are lightning, your footsteps thunder.

I had never known this before, in all my life. Tasted it, maybe. The Hyuuga boy, the towering sight of the Kyuubi destroying everything in its path. Yet here it was, rained upon me. Destruction.

I thought, _This is a good time to die. _

I must have smiled.

But I did not die.

Instead they beat me down.

I could not use the Mangekyou Sharingan against them, for I had already exhausted that _dojutsu _in Konoha. At the time I could not differentiate between the _jutsu _of my attackers. My skin was broken and white hot, nerves wires of pain threaded through limbs that somehow refused to fall. I could not stop myself, someone would have to nail me to the earth to make me still.

Akatsuki is the greatest strength I have ever known. They knew I would not be stilled until I fell. Their faces blurred around me, some grinning, slavering, insane, some cold and stone-hard with purpose. Blades pierced me through, slid through me like pins through cloth. I was in too much pain to feel them. The breath burning in my chest burst forth as fire, I could not have held it back if I had tried.

At the pinnacle of this timeless, brilliant moment, they felled me. Bruised face upturned as if in worship, I finally succumbed. Flesh is flesh, after all.

And they did not kill me.

Darkness reeled through my pounding skull. My head dropped. Then it lifted. I was caught in their arms, they were pulling me upright, pulling my hair to tilt me back so they could see my eyes. I tried to swallow, the brilliance fading. The euphoria's dissipation was slow.

"He's finished," one of them said.

"What . . .?" I managed, around a blood-thickened tongue. My nose was broken; the pain of speaking was dull and unbearable all at once.

Someone approached. I could scarcely see who. All I could see were shadows in the fading brilliance, surrounded by these living ghosts in the wood. They were the ghosts of my desires. I strained red-rimed eyes to see them more clearly. They were everything I wanted, and I could hardly breathe for fear they would sink back into dreaming.

The shadow approaching me was my height, or the height I would have been if I were able to stand straight. I had no pride here and no defense. He could do with me what he would. In the back of my mind a quiet, tired voice whispered, _Finally, someone with the power to judge me. _

_Oh let me be worthy._

_Else there is nothing._

He touched a hand to my swollen cheek. His hand was cool and steady, but even in that state I could see his eyes were more a threat than his killer's hand. He possessed a bloodline limit I did not know at the time. His eyes sent a shudder down my spine. My shoulders would have shaken were they not held in the vise of the three Akatsuki holding me fast.

"I am Pein," he said. "We have shown you pain to prove ourselves to you." He leaned closer, a faint smile amused on his lips. He was young, like me. "You wouldn't join us otherwise, would you?"

My lips moved, cracked. Tried to form the word _no. _Failed. But he understood. He was the one who had come to me and told me to kill my clan.

"You have suffered," he said softly, stepping back. "Already, before we laid a hand on you. You paid a price for your power. We all do. But pain is good, if it is for a purpose. Suffering is a power unto itself."

He spoke like a monk. And I understood, even with my concussion-addled senses, that he believed in a cause greater than himself. A zealot. I had always looked down upon zealots. But I could not deny his power. I wanted to swim in it, wrap myself inside it, sleep inside that cocoon until I emerged as something new. Unfold black wings and leave the discarded husk of the boy who had loved Shisui.

"I will join you," I whispered, voice ragged with blood-salt.

He nodded once, fixing his terrible gaze on mine as he did so. I held it, broken though I was.

Then he turned and moved away. My vision swam, then re-focused. I saw him stand before a pale figure, who was also being held by two cloud-cloaked brethren opposite me in the clearing.

"You have gone above and beyond what was asked," Pein said softly. But there was a razor edge to his words that had not been present when he spoke to me. "What was that _jutsu?_"

Orochimaru grinned. I could see the gleam of his teeth. "I was going to subdue him for you. But it seems you were all in a mood to thrash him."

Without another word, Pein slid past him and started into the green darkness of the wood. In response to Orochimaru's answer, his silence was like a door swinging quietly shut. I sensed that Orochimaru's time with these men was running out.

"Bring him," Pein called, voice disembodied by the night. He has a voice like silver.

"We'll heal you elsewhere, Itachi-_san,_" someone else told me politely. "Where your countrymen won't follow."

Even as he reassured me of this, my mind was fading into somewhere my countrymen couldn't follow.

**OoO OoO OoO**

When I awoke again, it was to the sound of birds twittering, and a gentle stream of yellow-green sunlight through leaves.

And to something oval with a spiral on it looming over me.

"Zetsu-_san_! He's awake! _Oi, _Zetsu-_san_!"

Fortunately this glad proclamation was muffled by the oval, which was actually a mask. Otherwise, the noise would have startled me, and my hand would have gone for the _kunai _pouch at my hip, which they had left on me. Now, of course, I know that _kunai _would have been as useless as flinging a handful of feathers at him . . . But back then, my instincts would have compelled me to defend myself from him. He wasn't wearing a ring like the others, nor a _hitae ate _with a slash through his village's insignia. He wasn't wearing Akatsuki's cloak, either. And, judging from the exuberance of his voice, I could practically hear the idiot's grin behind the mask.

This man was simple.

Or so I thought.

"Get off him, Tobi," someone said, and I heard footsteps shuffling through the grass, presumably Zetsu's.

Someone squatted beside me, resting long elbows on his knees. Half of his face was black, the other white, and his head was encased in what looked like the mouth of a giant carnivorous plant. His eyes had an odd, blank intensity to them, as if he were staring at me but seeing something else more clearly than he did what was right in front of him. He smelled like death and rotting leaves.

"Are you going to eat him, Zetsu-_san_?" the idiot asked, hovering nearby.

Zetsu sighed, as if Tobi's voice had brought him back to earth. "And why would we heal him so I could eat him?" His voice was soft, and slightly lisping.

"He's prettier now?" Tobi ventured.

Ignoring him, Zetsu said to me, "Pein has a message for you, now that you're awake."

_Only a message? _I thought. _What about the truth of this organization? What of its goals?_

"You will be sent on a mission," Zetsu explained. "Everything will be explained to you along the way."

"I'd hoped to meet the others," I said, frowning and sitting up. He didn't try to stop me, and the instant I was vertical a sharp pang stabbed through my skull. I have a weakness, just over my brow, where that concussion the Hyuuga boy gave me was. One of the previous night's blow's had apparently found it. "Last night---"

Zetsu gave a faint, derisive snort, and rose to his feet. He struck me as a generally patient man, but right now he seemed on edge. In a hurry to be somewhere. And I was slowing him down. "You've been unconscious for two days. The others have left. Gone to our current stronghold."

My back teeth clenched against the throbbing in my head, and I pushed myself to my feet. Aside from the headache, everything worked. My limbs didn't even feel weary. And the vague wavering at the edges of my vision following the killing of my clan was gone. I was standing here in the sunlight, in a world bright with color, as if nothing that had transpired before had really happened. It was like waking from a bad dream. The killing had been the storm; this was the red dawn after.

The _hitae ate _I wore suddenly felt like a vise gripping my head. I reached up and pulled it off, shook the lightning from my hair.

Zetsu was looking at me.

Then I remembered that Pein and the others wore their villages' forehead protectors with a slash through the insignia.

I drew out a _kunai. _But realized Zetsu's stare was disapproving.

"I wouldn't bother," he admonished. "You haven't proven yourself yet, and you haven't severed ties with Konoha in the way Pein hoped you would."

The blood froze in my veins. It had never occurred to me that they would find out, or that they would _care _if they found out.

It was the greatest blunder I ever made. It haunts me to this day.

I drew in a calming breath. I was steel, wasn't I? I could prove myself. "What must I do?"

If his face weren't so expressionless, I'd swear Zetsu wore the ghost of a smile. "You will go with two of our members to the Stone Country. To find the _rokubi._" He nodded slightly to one side, a gesture I realized was his equivalent of a shrug. "'What does that mean,' your face asks me. I am but the messenger. They will take you from here. You are theirs."

And I saw behind him, coming toward us, two Akatsuki. One was a woman, short, with black kohl-lined eyes and short brown hair that stuck out in uneven spikes. Her gaze on me was wary and wide. She must have been in her twenties, but looked younger. Before I could react to the news of the task before me, her companion introduced her.

"Souen," he said, with a thin smile. His eyes on me were cold.

"I am to go with you," I said evenly.

They were sending me on a mission to capture a six-tailed demon with a mouse of a woman and Orochimaru.

Zetsu was already leaving. _Already._ Tobi shambled after him.

This was indeed a test. They were abandoning me, to Orochimaru. If I didn't survive, if I succumbed, I was not worthy of them.

"Zetsu is a spy," Orochimaru informed me as I watched the messenger's receding back. "He entered Konoha during the confusion to see that you'd done what you set out to do."

Then he added, in a lower tone, meant only for me, "Couldn't bear to kill your precious brother?"

Standing slightly apart from us, Souen watched this exchange without comment. Orochimaru spoke as if she weren't there. There was definitely something odd about her. _Mental slowness, or deafness? No . . . or they wouldn't call her one of their own. _

The fact remained, though. Whatever she was, I was under her watch, and Orochimaru's.

"Take this." The serpent held out a folded black cloak.

I took it without hesitation. I must never hesitate again. They were waiting for me to hesitate. They saw sparing Sasuke as hesitation.

"But I am not one of you," I said, fixing him with an even stare. "Why should I dress as one of you?"

He flicked a strand of greasy black hair from the corner of his sneer. "Don't be stupid, Uchiha Itachi. This is another loyalty game. This is Konoha, all over again, only with a different mark being branded into your _flesh._" He phrased the word as if tasting it. "You're their equal. So they fear you, and test you." Again that hungry gleam. "Your answers don't lie here."

He did not want me to join. _There_ was my answer.

_He _was afraid.

I smiled thinly. Swung the cloak about my shoulders. Black unfurled around me, like wings. "We shall see. Let us go."

**END OF CHAPTER 6**

_Yamisui: I actually hadn't given up on this fic. I was waiting for Pein's character to be introduced, and to learn more about Tobi. It took Kishimoto forever to get around to it in the manga. (Though not nearly as long as it's going to take in the anime. If they pile any more flashbacks into the current episodes they may as well start running the series backwards.) As for where I'm going with the story . . . 'Scarlet' is turning out to be a few chapters longer than I'd originally planned. I've come to love the Akatsuki characters now that they're being developed more, so I've decided to fill in a bit of what Itachi goes through upon induction into the organization. Ultimately, I still intend to finish where I began—in Otafuku, where Itachi sees Sasuke for the first time since the massacre. Next chapter: 'Sanctuary Among the Strong.'_

_P.S. Never you fear. Souen is definitely NOT a Mary Sue. You'll see._


	7. Sanctuary Among the Strong

**OoO--SCARLET--OoO**

**OoO--OoO--Chapter 7: Sanctuary Among the Strong--OoO--OoO**

The Earth Country is a dry and unforgiving place. Even for a _shinobi, _the journey through such lands is trying, especially after the comparative ease with which we traveled northward through the Grass Country. There is nothing but wind and rock, as far as the eye can see, and a few scraggly desert plants with roots that must have been sharp as swords to pierce the soil there. The wind is hot and drains the water from your breath in the daytime, and at night it is cold and wails like a dying woman. There are settlements there, of course, or they wouldn't call it a country. But these are in the canyons, formed where the land has been cracked and bowed by earthquakes and then hardened into sunken fortresses against the wind.

I was grateful for the black cloak with the red clouds, and pulled the straw hat down low in front of my face to keep my eyes from tearing. Orochimaru must have been suffering the same discomfort; he wore a perpetual grimace and was unusually quiet. As for Souen, our silent companion, she seemed immune to the cold. Her expression never appeared to change, in fact. It was like someone had carved her from the stony lands we walked across. Only her eyes were liquid and alive, like a deer that has seen you in the woods and frozen in place as its last defense. They had sent me on a mission with Orochimaru to test me; what sort of test Souen was I couldn't fathom.

At night we slept in the shelter of outcroppings or in dugouts we'd made ourselves, never in the towns.

At night I saw strange dreams.

In my dreams I did not see the Uchiha I'd slaughtered, nor Shisui, whom I'd loved, nor Sasuke. Instead I saw the idiot, Tobi. We were in the woods, alone. Night had fallen, but the air was filled with a pregnant stillness. Something was about to change, forever. I could feel it.

Tobi laughed. "Where are you going, Uchiha Itachi?"

I was still wearing the clothes I had worn when I killed my clan. There was no blood on them yet; I was going to Konoha to bathe myself in blood. But when I tried to answer him, my throat stuck. My words would not even come out in a whisper. I stood stock-still, frozen.

"You think you know because Pein told you, don't you?" Tobi turned a somersault, landing on a lower branch of the tree he was in. His movements made him seem like a monkey, laughable and clever all at once. "He thought you cutting ties with the Uchiha was the answer. He thought it would bind you to Akatsuki forever! Ha!" He sank into a crouch, regarding me with a sudden sharpness that unnerved me. "Our bloodlines are not perfected like his. We are flawed, a shattered mirror image of what we should be. But there is a way for us to be _more _than what we are. And that is why Konoha feared us. And why you must now throw yourself into hell to save the only truth left."

I was impatient. Everyone promised ways to achieve new heights, new kinds of truth, all for the cost of my freedom. I didn't want to listen. But I was locked in place, and couldn't speak.

"You'll remember soon," Tobi chortled, backsliding into idiocy. "Why you disobeyed your _true_ masters. What your true purpose is. You'll remember, you'll remember! Ha! When the darkness comes for you_._"

He held our his hands to me, fingers uncurling like grotesque flowers to reveal what he held. Bloodied eyes, torn from their sockets and dangling pink nerves, rolled softly on his palms.

I awoke screaming, my voice finally freed.

Wind howled around our encampment, mad and stinging. Orochimaru leaned against an outcropping nearby, long arms folded across his chest, wearing a slight sneer. "Nightmares, Itachi-_kun_? Regret killing them?"

My tongue was dry and coated with the dull metallic taste of dust. I rose to my knees and spat, washing away the grit. Then I turned away from him, wiping my mouth with the corner of one sleeve, and lay down again, pulling the brim of my hat low over my face. I didn't answer him. But I didn't sleep, either. This was the fourth night I'd had nightmares this bad. And I felt certain I had met Tobi before--not the simpleton who tagged along after Zetsu, but the shrewd man who seemed to know a secret I didn't. Or a secret I knew but had yet to remember.

OoO OoO OoO

We passed through towns with more tumbleweeds than people, following rumors of the Rokubi. The beast had surfaced in its own monstrous form one week prior, but the people of that town had only seen it in the distance, and one night it had disappeared in the middle of a lightning storm. What this meant to us was that the Rokubi's previous host--its Jinchuuriki--had lost control of it and someone had been forced to reseal it. And this meant that we should not be hunting a lone person but the very Stone Village itself.

The Leaf have never had good relations with the Stone. We fought them in the Third Great Ninja War. Their lands were unforgiving and their economy low, so naturally they couldn't forgive Konoha for its prosperity. They tried to take Konohagakure, though, not the Fire Country. It would have been easier, had they overthrown its government and entangled themselves with the civilian populace. It would have complicated things when the Leaf tried to drive them out, because the Leaf protect civilians and would hesitate to sacrifice any. But they went straight for the more powerful enemy.

The result was devastation. I saw glimpses of it when I was four years old. And I saw it end with the rampage and capture of the Kyuubi. Violence is the most powerful teacher; the world is changed by it. It is the one true path to peace.

In the small town of Akaga we spent the night in an old, rickety inn atop a tavern. The walls were thin, and the wooden floors smelled like they'd rot through if the air weren't so dry.

Evening found us seated at a table in a darkened corner of the tavern with our wide-brimmed hats pulled low, sipping at _sake _but not really tasting it. By this time we had come to realize we were nearing our journey's end, for we had finally detected the presence of Stone Village _shinobi, _following us like shadows. How stupid they were in their wariness--we didn't even have to expend the effort of finding them. Orochimaru had a reputation among the _shinobi _of this country dating back to the Third War, when he was expelled from Konoha for experimenting with forbidden _jutsu _on Leaf ninja and Stone prisoners of war alike. _Doubtless he's been counting on his reputation to get Iwagakure's attention_, I thought.

"_Arrogance befitting a man who wants to be immortal."_

I froze, the _sake _bowl halfway to my lips, frowning. Someone had spoken the last sentence aloud to me. I was sure of it. But when I looked at my two companions, Orochimaru gazed past me, watching the tavern's entrance, and Souen merely stared blankly into her bowl. The voice had been a man's, rough and deep.

Orochimaru turned back toward me, smiling slightly. "It'll be tonight. They'll move tonight. You know your part."

"_You know your part. Play it well."_

I lowered my head, not wanting him to see my confusion. Twice I had heard the voice of someone who wasn't there. I was beginning to wonder if the regret I'd thought I didn't have was merely walled up behind a dam of . . . something, and now that days had passed between killing my clan and beginning my new life with Akatsuki there were hairline cracks forming in the wall.

OoO OoO OoO

I took first watch that night. In the unsettling darkness of the room we shared, instead of listening for the soft approach of Stone enemies, I heard whispers that neither of my companions could. They came from far corners of the room, even though no one was there. I had not slept well since we'd left the Fire Country, and my first reaction was paranoia. _Hypnosis. The Stone are throwing their voices as part of some genjutsu. Or . . . _I glanced round at Orochimaru, who appeared to be asleep on the opposite end of the room. He always seemed to sleep well; he had no conscience. When Souen slept, she seemed dead.

I shook my head, straightened my back and closed my eyes. I took a few deep breaths, sitting cross legged and gathering some meditative _chakra _to center myself.

"_You don't have to do this! Itachi!"_

"_For the good of the Leaf . . ."_

"_Where will you go after . . . ?"_

"_If I am to be their tool, let it be on my own terms. Among the strong . . ."_

With a grunt of disgust, I rose to my feet. The more I focused on being clear-headed, the clearer the voices became. Conversations with myself that had never happened, that made no sense.

"I'll relieve you." Orochimaru was sitting up, watching me keenly. Either he was a light sleeper or he was extremely wary of my behavior on this journey. "You'll be useless if you don't sleep."

I wasn't in a position to argue. My judgment was being clouded, I sensed. By what, I had no idea. But self-induced insomnia would only make my paranoia worse. I crawled into a corner and leaned my head against the wall, pulling my cloak up to my chin. Though I wasn't comfortable with Orochimaru watching over me while I slept, my head bowed and exhaustion took me.

OoO OoO OoO

"_Come back to me, have you?"_

_I stood in the glade as before, and Tobi was there. _

"_This time, you've come of your own accord," he said, peering down at me with his head cocked, curious. "You're beginning to WANT to remember."_

_I touched one hand to the hitae ate at my brow, an unconscious gesture of uncertainty. Was I here to remember? Was this dream some kind of slow answer to a question I couldn't ask? "What is it I've forgotten?" I asked him. "You know, don't you?"_

_He giggled, swung a complete revolution round the tree limb he clung to, like an acrobat performing. My confusion seemed to excite him. "Yes! Yes!" he laughed. "You must remember this place! This is where I took your memories after we did it!" _

_Leaves scattered from his perch, falling over me in a flurry of green._

"_Did what?" I demanded, brushing them away from my face. "What memories? This is the place where Pein told me to kill the Uchiha before I joined Akatsuki. I've never met you here."_

_Tobi executed a flip, landing in a crouch right in front of me. He rose to his feet slowly, and for the first time I became aware that he was taller . . . And that he was an Uchiha. _

_From the depths of the spiral mask he wore, I felt the glare of the Mangekyou Sharingan. I tried to break away, but I was not strong enough. Vines blossomed upward from the ground beneath me, clamped round my body, curved to cradle my head. I froze; black thorns barbed the thinner vines across my cheeks, pointed toward my eyes, cupped my throat so that the tips scratched the skin just over the arteries. _

"_Look at me, Uchiha Itachi," he said. His voice was deeper, older, sane. "I took your memories from you before we killed your clan. Because you asked me to, that you might keep your sanity."_

_What sanity? I wanted to scream. Do you call this sane? 'We' killed my clan? 'We'? _

_But thorns had slid between my lips; a gentle warning. _

"_I gave you back your memories," he said, "because you need to hate where you've come from or you will never leave it behind." _

_I don't hate them, I thought, fighting to breathe around the thundering of my heart. They were nothing to me at all. The only one who mattered was . . ._

"_I have given them back to you," he said, "because you are dying. And because you ought to remember the face of your killer."_

_His hand passed before my face, like a cloud across the sun, and when its shadow was gone the vines had melted away and I could move again. He was gone, and I stood in the glade alone, a snow of leaves at my feet. _

_Then a twig snapped behind me, a deliberate noise._

_I spun quickly. Pein stood behind me. He wore his hat with the brim pulled low, as he had on the day I killed my clan. _

"_You?" I murmured. "Is he trying to tell me you are going to kill me?"_

_Pein did not answer. He stood still and tall as a statue, face grave as stone. A breeze rustled through the glade, rasping leaves like dry bones scraping. And the wind whispered, in Tobi's voice, "It was not here. When you chose to kill everything you loved, you did not choose proudly, standing here in the forest with your head raised. No . . . You chose to kill them on your knees."_

_The world melted into night, and then I _was_ kneeling, head bowed, in a dark room that was all too familiar. I was on my knees, kneeling as shinobi do so that we feel smaller than the lords who play their power-games with our lives. There were some lords in the room with me, but they stood in shadows, in the furthest corners, away from me, watching with misgivings. At the forefront, looming over me, were the elders of Konoha. The Sandaime, his brother, his sister-in-law, and Danzou, the leader of Root. Others. Old men and women, pitiless and soft, who had not seen battle in decades, and were all the more disgusting for asking me to do what they wanted while their eyes were lined with sorrow._

"_You will have to leave, afterward," they told me. "We will buy you time."_

_I would have to leave, afterward, so that I could become their mistake, their byword, their village sacrifice. It was not enough that I gave them my blood and my service. They wanted my soul. _

_My hand, already a fist pressed to the floor where I knelt, clenched until the knuckles whitened. I bowed my head and said "Yes." My voice was so quiet, my demeanor so calm. But I screamed inside. The pain in that silent cry shattered my sanity and very nearly my will. From the moment I bowed my head to their orders of death, that scream became a river coursing through my blood, which I could only bury but never silence . . ._

OoO OoO OoO

I woke screaming.

Something hit me, hard. "Shut him _up_," Orochimaru snapped.

I blinked, fighting back stars and tears of pain. My head had struck the floor, hard enough to bleed. There was pressure, terrible pressure, on my back, suffocating me, and I thrashed in blind panic. Someone's hand clamped across my mouth, thin and cold, and I rolled over to see Souen's pale face looming above me, her spiked hair like a brown halo. Her face, as always, was blank, but her eyes were luminous. "Hush, the Stone are here," she warned softly.

I gagged, and she loosened her hold on my mouth, in time for me to vomit on the floor.

"See to him," Orochimaru ordered. "We're leaving."

There were muted thudding noises in the halls, the soft footfalls of killers. Noise and images clashed in my head, thunder split my skull; I fell again, on a dry part of the floor. There came a crash and the sound of wood splintering; the enemy had broken through the door. Souen shook me. But I could only lie there, my cheek on the floor, breathing dusty wood and seeing places and people I had left behind. There was blood in my mouth, and the metallic taste of dust, and a bitterness that burned my tongue and belly. That floor, in that godforsaken little room at the inn, was my one anchor to sanity as the rest of the unraveling world reeled around me in a dark rush.

Souen lifted me, after a while. She was inhumanly strong for someone so small and frail looking. There was a clash of blades in the hall; Orochimaru swore at me.

My memory grows dim, there. Or, rather, the memories that Uchiha Madara had awakened again grew so much brighter.

OoO OoO OoO

When at last I came to myself, was lying in cool darkness, against cold stone. Someone had laid a rough cloth over me, and the muscles in my limbs, my back, trembled.

I was scarcely in possession of my senses, but I could see, in the wan light of a candle mounted on the wall nearby, that we were in a prison. Souen sat near me, knees drawn up to her pointed chin, watching me with something oddly like pity. Orochimaru sat near the bars of our cell, watching me with obvious distaste. He appeared dirty but otherwise unharmed. His face and lanky hair shone with sweat, and he sat huddled with his arms crossed, like a petulant child.

"Useless," he snarled. "They send me with a 'team' and I end up doing everything myself."

My mind was operating on two levels at once. I heard everything in the present, but it was as if I were separated from all of it by a screen of smoked glass, collapsed into myself like a snail into its shell. Even as he spoke to me, my memories spoke as well. At the time I wasn't even sure they were memories; they might well have been hallucinations created by Tobi, whoever he was, to control me. Or they might have been my own sanity finally collapsing under the crushing weight of guilt.

I struggled to focus more on the present, dimly aware that I might die if I didn't. I recalled what Zetsu had said, about them testing me. Given Pein's displeasure with Orochimaru for attacking me, it was probably a safe assumption that he was being tested, as well. If I could not come to my senses, I would fail the test.

"We are . . . captives of the Stone?" I rasped. My tongue was dry, but my mouth tasted like blood. Doubtless I'd cut something when he hit me at the inn. Either it was the concussion or I was going mad, but in my head I heard the echoing voices of the Leaf elders, telling me to kill Shisui. _"You must do this, or Konohagakure will perish. We are all prisoners of fate, Itachi . . ." _

"We are," Orochimaru agreed. "But not because Akatsuki has sent us here. It's because of you."

Confused, I thought at first he could hear my thoughts. Then I realized he referred to the Stone, and to our current lack of freedom. I attempted to push myself upright. Failed. My backside had gone numb from the cold, rough flagstones beneath us. Everything had gone numb.

"Me?" I managed. My tongue felt thick and dry. "How could they know me?" In my head, my dead father said, _"I scarcely know you any more . . ."_

Orochimaru sneered. "Your _hitae ate. _Why wear it if you're not going to slash it as an Akatsuki member? If you'd _really _wanted a souvenir from the Leaf, why not just take some Uchiha finger-bones?"

Pain flared in my skull, and a wave of nausea swept through me. I gritted my teeth. Whatever was happening, my sanity was being shaken to its foundations. I thought of Tobi, holding eyeballs in his palms. Of the way I'd bowed, so humbly, when Konoha's elders had ordered me to murder my clan. If it was real, and the dreams were true . . .

If they were, and there had been no sense of pride or accomplishment when I had finally broken free of Konoha . . . then the massacre I had committed had not been my choice. The emptiness left by my vanquished pride brimmed with pain. Confused, I swayed toward belief. Had I really been a victim of the elders' cruel orders? Had I become a will-less tool for killing? Why was I even alive? If the dreams were true, nothing I had ever done, from the moment I was branded _that genius, _had ever been my choice. Nothing that had mattered, anyway. The "testing of my limits," my hatred for my clan, was all an illusion, given to me by the Uchiha who called himself Tobi, to pacify me, a drug to anesthetize my soul until the deed was done and I was free.

_But is this freedom? Is it?_

If the dreams were true . . . If they weren't dreams, but memories . . . They had used me, their genius, their shining star, to spy on ANBU while they plotted in the shadows. Konoha had used me, their conveniently troubled genius, because they knew my mental state had never been truly stable and insanity was the cleanest way they could explain to the rest of the village what I'd done. But why? What could they gain?

Was it real? What _was _real? Oh gods, let something be real . . .

"They know you're one of the Leaf," Orochimaru hissed. "Though not that you're an Uchiha. So keep your temper, if not your wits, about you."

_Because I have a use for you. _

He didn't say it, outright. But he didn't need to. I knew that look. He spoke to me like I was an investment about to slip through his fingers. I was beginning to understand that he wanted more than just my Sharingan eyes.

"Someone's coming," Souen murmured, turning wide-eyed toward the hall.

And someone was.

OoO OoO OoO

The Stone _shinobi _saved me.

Well, perhaps _saved _isn't the right word. Extended my life.

My face stung from the slap. They used crude torture, trying to intimidate me.

My tormentor's hand dropped to his side. His eyes, narrowed to slits, regarded me with the air of a man pretending he is morally comfortable with cruelty when he is, in fact, only well-practiced in it.

"What is your name? What rank do you hold in Konoha? Why have they sent you to spy?"

The questions rained down on me like iron pellets. My head throbbed. They pained me in a way that their fists could not. Somehow I had completely lost my sense of adrenaline, so that I didn't care what happened to my body. But my mind, treacherous machine that it was, went on working, showing me memories that might or might not be mine.

"Itachi," I mumbled though swollen lips. "Exile from Konoha. Fled to the Earth Country."

"NO," he snarled, his voice a whip-crack. And it began again. Strike flat of palm to face, alternated with fists to ensure that one form of brutality did not become too easy to bear. Hours on end, or maybe only minutes, even through the pain I could not feel the passage of time. The beatings only made it worse.

But time must have passed, for I gradually became aware of something. My mind, ever restless, sought new avenues since my dulled senses had practically shut my body down. I started trying to suppress the flow of so-called memories, to let myself think clearly as I had before the final dream at the inn. I entered a sort of meditative state, and stopped answering the Stone interrogator's questions altogether.

_There's no point answering, there's no point, _I reminded myself, every so often when the pain threatened to break through my self-induced trance. _Even if you give him the truth, he won't . . . _

Another blow, blood trickling from the corner of my eye, trailing past my ear.

_Even if you tell him the truth . . ._

. . . _he won't listen, for it is not the truth he wants. _

Somehow, during that indeterminable time, my head became clearer.

_Am I so different? Even if it isn't the truth, my dreams are trying to tell me something. Someone or something is trying to reach out to me, to wake me, to warn me. But what I see when I dream, waking or sleeping, is not what I want to see. So I shut my eyes._

_I shut them._

My eyes opened, rimed with blood and sleep.

"I am Itachi," I answered. "I am a murderer. And Konoha is no longer my home."

He sucked in a breath, to deny it and strike me again.

_Shinobi _life is made up of rooms such as this; rooms with doors and no windows, floorboards that creak and walls that smell of dust and fear. But I had been in a thousand rooms like this before. Mute, on my knees, letting duty bow my head.

I was sick of letting myself be silenced.

I grinned, a feral baring of my teeth. I must have looked crazed. "I've killed the Uchiha. You'll find my name in every _bingu_ book in every country soon enough. The cowardly old men who rule the Leaf ordered me to do it, then cast me out. You think I'm their spy? Fools!" I spat. My tormentor drew back. My saliva made a small red blot on the floor.

"You . . . have . . ." He seemed at a loss. Truth seems to have that effect.

"I did it willingly!" I snarled. "I'm their sacrificial demon. Demons care nothing for the lives of anyone, not even their own. So what would you have me say, then?_ What would you have me say?"_

He struck me in the head, then, afraid I would go berserk despite my weakened state. I sat there, bound upright and dazed, my head spinning like a planet within the frame of my skull.

There he made his fatal mistake. He looked me directly in the eyes. The Stone are weak. What Village trains its _shinobi _to look into the eyes of someone who claims to have killed an entire clan famous for its _dojutsu_?

I didn't go berserk as he'd feared, but I did not sit silent with my head bowed, either. With the Mangekyou Sharingan wheeling red in my eyes, I compelled him to cut me free. I then extracted from him what I wanted to know, and left.

OoO OoO OoO

It took a great deal of strength to work the pulley system in the dungeon, to lift the prison door. But my two comrades were watching, so I carefully kept the strain from making its way onto my face. I must have looked terrible enough; I had washed the blood off my face but it was still swollen and bruised.

The door hung over them like metal teeth as they pushed themselves to their feet.

"They send me with a team," I said, "but I have to do the work."

Orochimaru managed a half-smile that was both calculating and irritated.

Souen's expression was blank as ever, but her eyes glistened as she left the prison to join me. "What did you do?" she asked. There was a smudge of dirt across the bridge of her nose, and her face was pale and drawn, as if she hadn't eaten in days, but there was an air of feverish anticipation about her. Something like hope.

I ducked into the prison cell, retrieved my cloak and fastened it around my shoulders. The straw hat was gone, which didn't bode well for walking across the plains under the sun of this harsh, unforgiving land . . . not that it mattered. I was going to survive. I had decided this, while the Stone beat me in that timeless room. With every blow, I'd felt my last illusions slip away.

The illusions I refer to were not the dreams, which might be memories. They were the illusions I had about what awaited me in Akatsuki, beyond Konoha's gates. Whatever the reason for my fleeing the Leaf to join this organization, be it ruthless ambition or some sort of noble self-sacrifice, I was not going to find any sanctuary here. Already I could see that Akatsuki had its own divided loyalties. It was imperfect, and regardless of my motives I was going to find no peace among them.

I was going to have to look to myself for answers, because looking for answers in everything and everyone around me was leaving me raw and empty.

. . . and I would begin by surviving this to find Tobi again. To ask him what he had done to me, why I was swaying toward belief that the Leaf had betrayed its own using me, why I felt grief and remorse and love and hatred washing over me in waves now, when how it felt to kill my clan should have been something dead and gone.

And what he meant by my "murderers."

I turned to Souen. "I've used our captivity to my advantage. I will lead you to the Rokubi." For the benefit of Orochimaru, who stood behind me, I added, "_I _will lead you."

The choice to set aside the confusion plaguing me and carry out the mission was the turning point in my fate. I was to face a rocky, brutal slide into the truth, until at last I could face it, bruised and battered but clear of mind. But first Orochimaru turned on me. And the final piece of truth in the puzzle came not from Tobi, but from the man the Leaf called the "Frog Hermit."

**End of Chapter 8**

_Next chapter: "Traitor" _


	8. Traitor

**{OoO}---SCARLET---{OoO}**

**{OoO}---{OoO}---Chapter 8: Traitor---{OoO}---{OoO}**

What I had learned from the Stone interrogator was that the Rokubi's previous host had died. More specifically, she was killed. She rebelled against her clan. Gone power-drunk and crazed, she attacked her own Village. She willingly broke the seal that bound the Rokubi inside her, willingly commit massacre. And they put her down like an animal. It was a public execution, and they tortured her before they took the Rokubi out of her and transferred it to a new host. I'm sure there were children watching. That is the _shinobi _way.

The new host was an old man. They called him the Serpent Sage. He lived in a hermitage in the mountains to the west of Iwakagure, completely alone. This wasn't because the Stone hated him. They tried to send servants to him to care for him, but he sent every single one away. I wondered if he hated the Village for making him the new host. _Shinobi _like to ruthlessly sacrifice their own, then glorify the ruined ones as martyrs, so no doubt he was bitter and wanted to be left alone to his fate.

Like me, I suppose. Except I had ruined ones of my own. My martyrs, who followed me like ghosts.

I kept to the narrow, winding trail we were taking into the mountains, and did not look back at the ghosts that dogged my heels.

Orochimaru and Souen were more sure-footed than I, having been starved but not beaten during our imprisonment. They scouted ahead of me where the trail forked in two directions.

Souen returned first, when the shadows were grey and long and the sun a fiery blaze rimming the peaks. The wind was freezing, and she had to have been chilled to the bone but gave no sign of it. I'd noticed by now that no matter what the weather her skin stayed that same, porcelain pale. My nose and cheeks were chapped and red, but she was colorless as a corpse.

"There's a valley to the south," she told me, barely audible as the wind wailed through the canyons. "He saw me. He knows we're here."

No surprise. _Shinobi _aren't called "Sage" without reason. I nodded. "What is his reaction?" Obviously he hadn't chased her or we'd be dodging cobra venom, or whatever a "Serpent Sage" threw at interlopers.

She looked puzzled—or as puzzled as Souen could look, which meant her brown eyes widened. "He called to me. Motioned for me to come, and pointed toward his home."

"He thinks you're alone," I said. "We'll take him by surprise."

Orochimaru came sauntering down the trail from the other direction. He never did like to run; he must've thought it showed he wasn't in control of the situation. Smirking for no real reason, he joined us and we formed a plan for Souen to lure the old man out again while the two of us come at him from either side from behind, cutting him off from the hermitage walls. If you're going to capture someone, avoid letting them choose the battle ground.

We split up and took our positions—Orochimaru and I on either side of the valley, and Souen out in the open on the trail. The hermitage wasn't truly _in _the valley, but on a plateau surrounded on all sides by deep canyon. Unlike the barren, rocky country east of the mountains, the plateau was ribbed with rice paddies, an emerald in the rough. There was a distinctly _green _smell rising from it, which reminded me of home. Of Konoha.

I shook my head. My ghosts dispersed.

Souen was making her way toward the edge of the trail, and across the canyon the old man was coming out to meet her. He was hunchbacked, and frail-looking. His head was shaved like a monk's, and he wore dark red robes like a monk's. He carried a staff made of wood as twisted as his body.

And the valley was filled with his _chakra, _like a cauldron about to overflow.

He stopped at the edge of the plateau, and did not call out to Souen, but turned to face me. He _saw _me; I'm sure of it. Which was impossible, because I also learned from the Stone that he was blind.

Then he turned and looked directly at Orochimaru in his eyrie. Or, at least, I assume he did, because Orochimaru emerged from the shadows of the cliff and stood staring down at him. The Sannin knew he'd been spotted, and saw no point in hiding. I followed suit.

Once we had stepped into view, the old man turned back to Souen, and I became privy to a magnificent sight. From the depths of the deep canyon that wound round the hermitage, there rose the head of a behemoth serpent, colored purple to match the twilight shadows. Enormous black eyes transfixed Souen as the triangular head stretched across the divide and came to rest on the trail at her feet. After a moment's hesitation, she climbed onto the head, and was carried to the other side and set down before the Serpent Sage.

The old man lifted his head, and shouted. His voice filled the valley. It was rough, terrible, like thunder. Small stones trembled at my feet. I realized then that he was a true Sage of the earth, and that his _chakra _had merged with the valley so that every grain of sand echoed his voice.

"_SHINOBI, _YOU WHO COME TO TAKE THE BEAST INSIDE ME, WHO COME TO KILL ME. WELCOME. I AM READY TO EMBRACE THE PEACE OF DEATH. AND I WILL DO SO WITHOUT A FIGHT, FOR WHERE IS THE PEACE IN THAT? I ASK ONLY THAT YOU COME DOWN TO ME, AND SPEND ONE NIGHT HERE. FOR BEFORE I GO, I LONG TO HEAR HUMAN VOICES, THAT I MIGHT NOT PASS ALONE."

Any _shinobi _worth his salt would have disbelieved that in a heartbeat. But we did not. Not a one of us. Had he wanted to, he could have killed us before we even knew he was aware of our presence. Instead he asked for death. The mighty serpent's head swung toward its master, and in the narrowing of its dark eyes I read alarm and disapproval, even grief. Even Orochimaru, who trusts no one, began descending the slope opposite me. The snake held its master's gaze for a moment, then swung toward me. I climbed onto it, and as I did so the black eyes rolled upward to glare at me. But it obeyed its master, and soon both Orochimaru and I stood on the plateau, unscathed.

"Welcome," the Sage repeated, at normal volume. His voice was feeble when not magnified. "You must be tired, and hungry. I will give you shelter for the night."

"And in the morning we leave for the Water Country," I said firmly. "We will not be dissuaded by anything that is given to us, or said tonight." I was warning him not to expect compassion. Orochimaru had none, and I was too afraid of my own. And Souen…who knew what she was thinking, with her blank face and hopeless eyes.

The old man nodded assent, but there was something in his silence that felt like he was assessing me. Singling me out. For what, I couldn't guess.

He led us into the quiet halls of his home, carved with raw _chakra _from the plateau stones and clean as any temple attended by fifty monks. I could see faint impressions of broom-strokes in what little dust there was; he must have swept his halls every day. There were no lanterns in the place, but when at last we entered his main room there was a large square fireplace built into the floor, over which there hung several copper kettles suspended by chain pulleys. They were steaming, and I smelled miso, green tea and cabbage all at once.

The room was bare but well-carpeted with _tatami_ mats and warm. The old man seemed to know his way around without trouble; he motioned for us to take our fill with the clay bowls on the hearth-stones, while he pulled down the tea kettle and whisked in more leaves with his small wire brush.

Orochimaru ate with zeal. Souen merely pushed her food around. I ate slowly, watching the old man.

"In exchange for the meal, please tell me your stories," he told us. "First you, the snake charmer."

Orochimaru almost spit out a mouthful of cabbage. Then he recovered himself and swallowed, eyes gleaming. "Snake charmer. I like that. And I respect your abilities, so I'll tell you my story. But I warn you it has no end, for I intend to live forever."

"Why?" The Sage tilted his head inquisitively, owlish.

"To learn all that there is to learn."

"We know everything the instant we're born. Then we spend a lifetime growing more foolish while further convincing ourselves we're wise. What you're after can't really be called knowledge."

Orochimaru smirked. "Power, then."

The Sage grunted. "How dull. But you may yet do something worthwhile with your power, so when I pass I will let you inherit Raiga's contract."

He must truly have been blind; Orochimaru was never going to amount to anything.

The Sannin, who had probably been about to launch into a grandiose tale of his grotesque experiments and dreams of conquest, shut his mouth for once.

"And you, young woman."

Souen flinched, and her spoon clattered into her bowl. "Nothing grand. And like Orochimaru's there is no end. There will never be an end." The note of anguish in her tone surprised me.

"Nothing lasts forever," the old man told her gently. "I, too, had feared no end. But now you are here."

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. The fire popped and spit sparks.

"Once upon a time, there was a princess," Souen said, "and a _shinobi, _who loved her."

Orochimaru rolled his eyes. I didn't.

"She was very proud. So proud, she treated her ninja guardian like a pet. But her guardian was faithful, and loved her anyway. The princess was kept sequestered in the women's quarters because her father was a strict and hard man. She was bored. She was supposed to learn the womanly arts of flower arranging and calligraphy and poetry and the tea ceremony. She begged her guardian to teach her to use _kunai _and _katana _and poisons and antidotes. She became a _shinobi _herself, in her own right. And in exchange, she became the _shinobi_'s lover." Souen's eyes shimmered with tears, like a hundred-year-old glass window weeping down itself. But if she had real tears to cry, she held them back.

"But a princess and a _shinobi _are not equal. _Shinobi _cannot be allowed to see themselves as equal to those they serve, or it becomes impossible to sacrifice their lives for those they protect. And the princess was too proud to believe herself equal to her lover. So it was a wretched, one-sided love.

"Her father found out about the secret affair one day when the princess was sixteen, and he was keen to marry her off to a prince of the Lightning Country. He beat her, and threw her guardian in prison. The next morning, both were gone, and the king was found dead. Poisoned.

"The princess had done it. Then she demanded her guardian take her into exile, to hide. But when the queen hired an army of ninja to hunt them down, it was the _shinobi _who was punished. Though strong, while protecting the princess her guardian could not win. This display of true devotion was rewarded with torture, and being left for dead in the wilderness.

"The princess never found out where. But she was married to the Lightning prince. And the _shinobi, _whose body was battered and broken beyond repair, was taken in by Akatsuki."

Souen's eyes were the most alive I had ever seen them. I understood, now, her hopelessness. And that she was, like me, walking the tortured path between vengeance and love. Only I could not yet tell who the true monsters were in my tale—myself, or the ones who ordered me to commit murder.

"Pein healed you?" Orochimaru peered at Souen shrewdly. "I'd thought none of us were medic-_nin. _I am the closest to the type."

"Yes," she replied. Her eyes were blank again. Carefully so, I thought.

Orochimaru seemed keen on pressing the matter, but the Sage interrupted him. "There is one thing, young woman, that gives meaning to life, and that is love."

"If I had died in the wilderness, I would have died still loving her," Souen said numbly. "But I lived. And learned that she became a great lady of the Kaminari, and truly loved her king, and bore him children. There is no justice in this world; only suffering. The best we can hope for is to rise to the pinnacle of power, to escape being trod upon."

"Straight from Pein's mouth, isn't that?" Orochimaru looked thoughtful, rubbing his pointed chin with spidery fingers. "Not to say I don't agree, of course. But if you're going to believe something you should at least use your own words to say so."

"Perhaps," the Sage said slowly, "your long life is no curse, but a chance. To find meaning again."

Souen blinked. And went back to pushing her food round her bowl.

"And you." The old man didn't turn toward me, but his tone deepened, and a frown creased his brow. How strange, to think that _I _unnerved him more than Orochimaru's god complex. "What shadows are those that follow you?"

It was my turn to flinch. "What shadows do you see?"

The old man scowled, waving his hand as if to swat away something irritating. "I'm blind, fool. And I don't claim to see spirits or tell futures. I merely assume you're one haunted by things you've seen or done, because you're the brooding one. You don't seem quick to brag about those you've slain, nor proud of whatever has driven you to this place and time. So you must have shadows. Regrets. Nightmares."

He was right. And I couldn't hate him for it, because he saw me clearly for all his blindness. And because the hatred I had once felt for everyone and everything around me was slipping through my fingers, day by day, like grains of sand.

"You're quite mistaken," I told him calmly. "I killed my clan to reach the height of my potential."

"And did you?" He seemed genuinely interested.

I wanted very much, for some reason, to tell him the truth right then. But doing so would make me appear weak in front of Orochimaru, whom I sensed was awaiting the chance to kill me. Or worse. "I, too, still quest for learning everything there is to learn," I answered.

He nodded, but he seemed disappointed.

**{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}**

That night, he took Orochimaru outside and transferred the great serpent Raiga's contract.

That night, when the moon had set and the stars burned clear in the vast sky, the old man woke me and bid me walk with him.

"You lied, before," he said. We wandered the edge of the plateau, on the stone rims of the rice paddies. The stars lit our way.

"Yes. I don't trust my companions."

"The snake charmer." He smiled. His smile was cracked and creviced as the cliffs around us. "Trust that he will betray you. There are many like him, each one nothing new. But I gave him Raiga to make him strong. Long after I'm gone, when he betrays you, he will become a force to stand against this 'Akatsuki'."

I smiled, in spite of myself. The expression felt sane and unfamiliar. "You believe your death better serves your cause, don't you?"

"In part," the old man agreed. "But I wish to die. I've born many burdens in my life, but the Rokubi sealed within me is the worst. Because I am a Sage, my control over the beast is…staggering. That is why I chose to leave Iwagakure. Such power is not a tool. It should never have been harnessed as a tool."

"Akatsuki will use it as a tool," I said pointedly. "Do you hate your clan so much you would rather give the Rokubi to us?"

He paused, tapping the earth with his staff to keep his footing. "Yes, I hate them," he said calmly. "I am only human, after all."

Something in my heart began to hurt. Ghosts whispered on the breeze. "But you loved them."

"Yes, that too. And blind though I am, I see the rise of your Red Cloud uniting this divided world to stand against you. In the end, there will be peace. For us all. For now, let the snake charmer become a thorn in your side."

From the depths of the canyon, I felt Raiga watching us. How he must have cursed his fate, that night, knowing he was to be given to a creature as foul as Orochimaru. And how he must have loved his master, to obey.

"You've learned so much about my companion, from just tonight?" I asked.

"I am a friend of the Frog Sage," the old man replied. "Who knew your snake charmer from boyhood. Who was betrayed by him time and time again."

"Jiraiya-_sama_," I murmured.

"_You don't have to do this! Itachi!"_

"_For the good of the Leaf…"_

I rubbed my temples. That was the voice I'd heard. Jiraiya's. Telling me I didn't have to slaughter the Uchiha. And I, saying I must, had bowed to the will of Konoha's elders because they feared the Uchiha's power. Had he been there, in that secret council, where they ordered the massacre? Or was this all in my head, my troubled mind trying to rationalize the great crime I'd committed by blaming others?

My brother's voice and Shisui's, asking _Why? Why? Why?_

I groaned, stumbled. The Sage caught my arm. "Something haunts you. Who is Jiraiya to you?"

"I don't know." But I wanted to. _If I could only find out what was happening to me from someone outside my dreams… _

"You're ill." The old man laid a cool, leathery palm on my forehead.

I shook my head, straightened. Pulled myself together. Tried to banish the pounding in my skull. It was true, my stomach had begun to pain me a few days ago. I might be ill. Could the torment of memories become a disease?

"_I have given them back to you because you are dying. And because you ought to remember the face of your killer."_

Tobi had warned me in my dream…or was it a memory? Who was my killer? Jiraiya? Pein? Tobi himself?

"You should sleep," the Sage said kindly. We had returned to the hermitage walls.

He pressed a small scroll into my hand, and gently closed my fingers around it. "Take this. It is for Jiraiya."

I took it.

**{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}**

In the morning, when we woke, the sun flared above the mountains in an angry red line. And the Sage lay dead on the open plateau. Beside him stood Souen, who had slit his throat.

Orochimaru swore loudly. Cursed the skies and pounded the earth. Then he advanced on Souen, murder in his eyes. "You little bitch, what have you done?"

Her eyes were alive, and there was an air of peace about her that I would not have thought possible. "I have thwarted my master's plan to turn someone else into a tool for Akatsuki."

He rushed her, ran her through.

She scarcely blinked.

"_Kugutsu,_" he hissed. "A puppet. You are Sasori's—"

"Spy," she finished for him. "His immortal doll. I was sent to test you both. Pein questions your loyalties."

"You weren't sent to kill the damned Rokubi!" Orochimaru snapped, twisting the blade and wrenching it free. He stabbed her over and over again, like a madman, trying to find her heart, the one living part of her.

"Stop!" I caught his arm, Sharingan flaring in my eyes. "If Pein wants our loyalties tested, killing her won't solve this."

The next thing I knew, he'd turned on me, tried to sink his fangs into my neck. But it was the betrayal I'd been expecting. His teeth never broke my skin; he found himself impaled through the belly on the Sage's staff, which I had picked up. He was desperate. He knew attacking Souen had ruined his chances with Pein, and that I would never vouch for him. He was trying to kill or enslave me, to pin everything—the Rokubi's death, Souen's imminent death—on me. All to remain part of Akatsuki—or so I thought at the time.

He dragged himself toward me, livid and horrible, pulling the staff further through his body, gathering poisoned _chakra _to strike at me again with his snake fangs.

I caught him with the Mangekyou Sharingan.

I tortured him. Years of his false promises, his lies, his tormenting of an already troubled mind. I gave them all back to him then. I can't remember what I showed him; I was half-mad myself.

Souen's voice called me back. She laid a hand on my shoulder. "Itachi-_san. _The Serpent Sage believed his life would serve a purpose. He will be a thorn in Akatsuki's side. You want what I want. What he wanted. So please, stay your hand."

Did I want what the old man wanted? Peace?

As a child I'd seen the ultimate force of destruction: a demon unleashed in the midst of a war between Villages. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

And I'd pissed myself in fear.

We all know, on some level, what is good and what is darkness. It is what we choose that makes us who we are.

"How do you know what I want?" I asked slowly. I drew a _kunai _with a soft hiss of steel, held it to Orochimaru's throat.

She lowered her arm. "Because I know why you slew your clan. I have been Sasori's spy for decades, trapped in this puppet form. And I witnessed the last meeting between you and Uchiha Madara. In the forest, the night before the slaughter, where you begged him to take your memories." Her eyes glistened. "He sealed away your love for them so that you could protect Konoha without losing your sanity. But you are remembering."

I sheathed my weapon. Left him trapped in it, standing there still as a statue, mouth twisted in a silent scream.

Swung my Mangekyou gaze to Souen. "Do you speak the truth? Uchiha Madara sealed my memories before I slew my clan?"

Her mouth fell open a little. I released my hold, just enough so that she remembered speech.

"He seeks to join Akatsuki, under the guise of Tobi. But he is Uchiha Madara, who took your memories and sealed away your humanity for one night. Who aided you in the slaughter."

I froze. She wasn't lying. My _dojutsu _penetrated to the mind; her artificial body was no defense against me.

"I want you to kill me, Uchiha Itachi," she said. "For you can better than any other. Do not force me to return with you to my master, who keeps me prisoner in this body."

She knew I would. I was a god of death, a double-edged sword. A traitor who had killed his clan to protect his Village.

With my _dojutsu_, I could see her heart clearly in the puppet's body. I drew the _kunai _again, aimed it well.

There were tears of joy in her voice. "Take the Serpent Sage's body to them. They will forgive you the loss of the Rokubi if you blame Orochimaru, and provide them with a corpse full of the Stone Village's secrets. Also, there is a scroll in my pack. Promise me you will deliver it to the princess of the Kaminari. It is all I ask."

At the time, I had no idea if her beloved, cruel princess was still alive after her decades as Sasori's spy. But I promised.

She smiled up at me then, for the first and last time. A young smile, that belonged on a spike-haired, brown-eyed woman who still remembered love. "You too, Uchiha Itachi. Soon you will remember, and find meaning again."

I plunged the _kunai _downward.

**End of Chapter 8**

_Next and final chapter: "Sasuke"._

_P.S. If the second half of this seems like it was written by a drunk person…._

………_.it was. _


	9. Sasuke

**{OoO}---SCARLET---{OoO}**

**{OoO}---{OoO}---Chapter 9: Sasuke---{OoO}---{OoO}**

I traveled back toward Konoha, alone, bearing a corpse over one shoulder, wrapped in my black cloak, and the two scrolls. I had burned Souen's ashes on the plateau, and scattered them in the wind. She, at least, was free.

The lonely journey took a heavy toll on me. I was quick but not terribly strong, and my back and neck ached terribly from the load. I camped against stands of boulders, too leery of Orochimaru finding me again to make a fire.

I did not sleep a single night. I tried the first night, but woke screaming each time, thrashing off invisible hands. The Uchiha were all around me, all the time. I could feel it. Every time my eyes drifted closed they crowded in around me, clawing and clutching as if I were the one lifeboat in they could cling to. They wanted something from me but I could never understand what. Mortal flesh, so they could live again? An apology, to still their grudge? My spirit, to join theirs? I was drowning in them. The desert was wide and open and free but my memories walled me in.

I was beginning to remember the massacre again, in flashes, and the cold-blooded killer who ran at my side to the Uchiha compound, when until recently I'd believed I was alone that night. Uchiha Madara, who split from me in the compound to make better time. I remembered how we were like two renegade wolves, winter-starved and hunting the sheep in their fold. He had made me like him, for the sake of me surviving that night. If I'd had any shred of hesitation in me, I could have been killed before escaping Konoha.

I passed travelers, who scarcely looked at me. They must have been too afraid.

The pain in my head and stomach grew worse. I began to experience dark spots in my vision, and to believe that the Sage had been right. I was dying.

I stopped caring about anything but the sheer will it took to place one foot in front of the other. Souen had said I would find purpose, but I'd lost it instead. Who would give it back to me? Akatsuki, to whom I was just another cog in the grinding machines of war? On the fifth day I collapsed. Dropped like a stone, in a narrow ravine worn smooth by wind and water. The corpse thudded against the stone floor behind me, and I pitched forward.

But I was denied even the peace of unconsciousness.

_Why why why? _Their wails echoed through the canyon. My head snapped up and I groaned; bloody handprints smeared the rocks around me. Their footsteps whispered over the hard earth, gliding toward me.

I scrambled to my feet, spun about to face them.

The place was empty. The walls were clean. The only blood red stain came from the dawn, seeping into the canyon. I squinted. A small, dark spot appeared in the sky, drawing nearer. Shading my brow with one shaking hand, I focused my Sharingan and realized it was a messenger hawk. Then the dark spots clouded my sight again, and I ceased the _dojutsu, _rubbing my eyes with both fists.

Moments later, the hawk alighted on the canyon floor. I crouched before it, holding out a hand. With near comical dignity, the bird stuck out one foot, to which a tiny scroll was fastened. I took it, mindful of the sharp beak, and sat to read it.

_I'm sorry I wasn't able to contact you sooner. But I have left Konoha, and it was difficult to find a messenger. Great injustice has been done, which I will try to set to rights. What has happened between you, and your family, and the village elders can't be undone, but I swear I'll do what I can to give what befell you a purpose. Fate willing, our work will bring about the peace you wanted._

_I will meet you in the Valley of the End, at the next full moon. _

_Jiraiya_

I read it three times. What was my connection to him? I couldn't remember. I'd seen him before, heard of his strength. But the only connection I saw was that my companion had killed a friend of his, and that I was taking him a message, no doubt to report the old man's death.

Frustrated, I opened the scroll the Serpent Sage had entrusted to me.

_I know that you have in your care the Jinchuuriki who bears the Kyuubi. The six-tailed dragon inside me begs for release. She will not let me sleep. She tasted freedom only to have it torn from her, so can we blame her? I thought living without sleep would kill me, and end this, but she lent me her strength, so that I remained healthy and sane. _

_Now there are three Akatsuki here, to take her from me. I cannot let them take her. But two of them still have good left in their hearts, and_

My heart clenched. _Oh, stupid old man, how can you believe that? I have never been 'good.' What does it matter to realize I loved my family, loved Konoha? Loving the ones I killed makes me all the more a monster._

But I read on.

_and I've found hope. I will ask them to kill me and end my torment. So when this reaches you, I will be gone. But I beg you to watch over your Jinchuuriki, so that he does not suffer the same fate. Jinchuuriki die young because the beast wears them down from the inside, until it becomes who they are. I entreat you to keep your boy who he is. And if the time should come for him, see that his end is quick and merciful. _

_Your friend, always_

_Soujin_

He wanted us to kill him. But he ended up asking Souen, and not me. Why? Had he judged me the weaker of the two?

Then I remembered: _"What shadows are those that follow you?"_

He knew I was haunted. So he, unlike Souen, chose not to lay his burden on me.

I closed the scroll again. Then I hoisted his body onto my shoulders, rose, and began walking.

**{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}**

Jiraiya was waiting when I arrived at the falls. He sat on one side of the river; I stood on the other. I laid my burden down and waited.

He looked older than when I'd last seen him. There were new lines under his eyes, where time had raked its claws. He looked as weathered as the boulders around him, worn smooth by the river. His expression told me that I, too, had changed.

"Come to this side, Itachi," he said gravely.

I hadn't thought much of what I would say to him, how I'd react. Now I laughed. A bitter laugh I had to choke back at the end. "Join you? We can hear each other well enough. This place echoes."

He looked sad, so sad. "I don't blame you for not trusting me."

"Why do you trust _me_?" I asked. "Don't you know your monster when you see him?"

His squarish jaw tightened visibly. "We _all_ have monsters in us," he said sharply. "Every one of us. Even the weakest. And Konoha has committed a terrible crime. They forced you to use yours, to draw the blood they were too cowardly to stain their hands with."

He hadn't even asked about the corpse at my side. He truly was there for _me._

I couldn't imagine why. "So you think to help me out of pity?"

He bowed his head. "Out of guilt. Sarutobi wants me to succeed him. But when I learned what the council had chosen to do about the Uchiha last month, I left. I was too eager to prevent my hands from being stained, so I abandoned the Village. But I knew I could not let them do such a thing to you, then cast you out to die."

I laughed again, and this time it hurt, oh it hurt so much. It merged with the pain already twisting my stomach and became a thick mass of pain I could neither heal nor vomit up. "Do such a thing to me? _Do such a thing to me? I _did it. _I _did. My monster is stronger than yours, so you wouldn't know. There was no mind control when I agreed to do it. No one held a knife to my throat. They spoke, and I obeyed. And the beauty of it is, I even _loved _them! I killed Shisui before they ever called upon me! All because strength is my drug, the shadow I chase but never catch."

He bowed his head again. How heavy his guilt must have been! Such a burden! He traveled, wrote his books. While I slaughtered everything I touched.

"They gave you to Ibiki," he said, "when you were twelve."

His words struck me like a slap in the face.

"You were always troubled," he said. "They decided to use you. But you needed to be stronger. Through hypnosis, Morino Ibiki and his interrogators learned the secret of the Mangekyou Sharingan from you. But you were not a monster. Though you struggled with inner violence when you killed enemies, still you would not kill your closest friend willingly. So they gave you a…push. They needed something with which to brand you insane. They were planning to destroy the Uchiha anyway. Shisui was conveniently close at hand."

"You're saying," I said slowly, "that I did not kill Uchiha Shisui."

"No," he said. "Not willingly."

I believed him when he said they'd tried to "push" me into killing Shisui. Ah, but as a user of _dojutsu, _I knew well the law of hypnosis: you can't hypnotize someone to do something which their deepest moral fibers oppose. And I had no deep, strong-rooted moral fibers. At least, not the morals most people hold to. Regardless of what Jiraiya wanted to believe, I had killed Shisui because deep down, I _wanted_ to. The same way I had hated my clan, deep down, for wrapping me in their prison of duty.

_No, Jiraiya, I am guilty. The only difference is that now I understand regret._

"And my clan…?"

"Memory alteration takes its toll. You started experiencing blank places in your memory. You agreed to destroy the Uchiha of your own volition, to protect Konoha. It was not a choice you made lightly. When they offered you hypnosis to keep you sane, you refused. You were frightened. But in the end you could not bring yourself to do it with a clear head, and you began to lose your sanity as the appointed day approached. That was when Uchiha Madara found you. Made you an offer: join him, help him infiltrate Akatsuki, and he would drain away your sadness and your fear."

"Have I helped him?" I asked, suddenly dizzy. I couldn't remember. Every word I'd spoken with Madara felt like a dream.

"I don't know," Jiraiya said, and now his tone was gentle. "That is for you to determine. I am here to confess my guilt, and the guilt of the council. And to absolve you of yours."

"Your friend is dead," I said. I tossed him the scroll. I needed him to hate me. He wanted to forgive me but he didn't understand the deep darkness in me, and that I did not deserve absolution.

When you've hated yourself for so long you become addicted to it.

He caught the scroll but didn't read it. "You didn't kill him, Itachi."

I smiled, but there was no truth in it. "I don't know. Maybe I did. And I just want to believe I didn't."

He only looked sad. "You're dying."

I exhaled. Paced a meaningless circle while the world blurred around me. My face burned.

"How?" I finally asked. I did not question the truth of it. _"You're ill," _the old man had said.

"I'm not sure who," Jiraiya said heavily. "Danzou was the most ruthless. And Root breeds assassins. But you carry in your blood a slow-acting toxin meant to end your life once you've accomplished your purpose."

"How long?"

He produced a small glass vial from his pack. "I'm still working on a true antidote, but this slows the spread."

He threw it to me, and I caught it. I didn't tell him, but I was glad it wouldn't keep me from dying. I had protected Konoha with my sins, hadn't I? Now my purpose was served. I'd reached the height of my purpose, and beyond this strength was meaningless.

"What should I give you in return?" I asked him. I could not have lived with myself being in his debt. Not when my life wasn't worth preserving.

He looked down at the corpse beside me. "You have brought my friend to me, so he can be buried. That is enough."

It was not enough. The phantoms swirling round me like sea mist hissed that it was not. I might have destroyed their lives and saved many more, but the person who must lose his life never sees it that way. They knew it was really my hatred that had brought about their ruin, and they would follow me until I joined them, and until that day no good I did would ever, ever be _enough_.

"I will serve Konoha, then," I said. "As your spy."

He gave me a long, measuring look. I think he'd been secretly hoping for such an arrangement, but had been too full of guilt to ask. Even now, he was too full of guilt to accept.

"Itachi, enough has been asked of you," he said. "I will send you new antidotes as I find them."

I didn't want his forgiveness. I backed away from the river's shore, into the shadows of the wood, into my shadows. "I will send you information."

"What about Sasuke?" he called after me. "You were close, before…"

"Tell him nothing," I answered. I had spent too long trying to make him into what I was. If he did not keep his hatred for me, I feared he might follow me into ruin, regain his love for me and suffer in a Village that believed I was insane. Better he stay bound to Konoha, to learn that I was with Akatsuki and come to hate and fear them, as well he should. After all, I was a murderer. It may have been true that I was ordered to kill, but in the end I bowed to their will because I had it in me to kill. In the end, however much I blame my clan, my government, my enemies, three fingers point back to me.

I slipped off into the forest, alone.

**{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}**

**Five Years Later**

_Northern Fire Country_

I trudged the muddy road to Otafuku. My stomach hurt constantly, and the Mangekyou Sharingan was beginning to take its toll on my vision. But I was alive, thanks to Jiraiya's constantly updated versions of the antidote. At my side strode Kisame, my new partner. They had assigned him to me one year after Orochimaru left the organization. He was a cruel man in battle, a deformed relic of the old _shinobi _teachings in the Water Country, a Mist swordsman. But he was also remarkably polite. He knew that when dwelling among the best and brightest of the world's killers, it was best to avoid offending them. Smart man.

He also never tried to pry into my past. Again, smart man.

Unfortunately, along the road, beneath a stead downpour, my past found me again.

We met him while taking shelter under a wood awning by the roadside. I with my straw hat pulled low. He sat hooded in his grey cloak, cleaning water spots from his glasses.

"The storm will clear soon," he remarked casually. "But there's bound to be a clash. You're not the only one journeying to Otafuku, after the Nine-Tails brat."

Kisame tilted his head and grinned, one hand surreptitiously sliding to the hilt of his sword, Samehada. I stilled him with a barely perceptible shake of my head.

"Orochimaru is targeting Uzumaki Naruto as well?" I asked. "Or are you warning me about Jiraiya, with whom the boy travels?" This was going to be a delicate enough operation, my planned failure to capture Naruto. Jiraiya had spent months discussing it; how to fool my partner. Kisame wasn't an idiot, and that was a problem. The last thing I wanted was to add another powerful non-idiot to the mix.

Kabuto smirked. "You should know, Orochimaru wants the boy. For his next body. For the eyes, specifically."

I knew about the "snake charmer's" body-jumping habits by this point. And I knew that Kabuto wasn't talking about Naruto when he said "the boy."

"Why tell me?" I asked coldly. "Surely your master didn't send you."

Kabuto leaned his head back against the shelter wall. "Mm…I wonder. But as for why I'm telling _you, _you tell _me. _You're the one who spared him from the massacre. I doubt it was so that he could become someone else's skin."

"No," I murmured.

"Well then." He rose and left.

Kisame peered at me with great interest. "Who was the brat talking about, Itachi-_san_?"

"No one important."

I made a vow to myself, as the rain pounded the roof. Orochimaru would never have my brother. Sasuke was the last good part of me.

Sasuke was mine.

Two days later, we made our way down the rickety halls of the Otafuku inn. My plan was to find Uzumaki Naruto, rough him up a little. And stall until Jiraiya came. My plan was to let Jiraiya beat me, and flee with Kisame, feigning exhaustion.

I found Uzumaki Naruto, who answered the door to his room and stood gaping at me. Innocent and trusting, this boy was. I'd heard he was friends with Sasuke. I somehow doubted Sasuke was anywhere near this naïve.

My plan was set to go smoothly. Take the boy, lose him again, flee.

But my ghosts had followed me down the hall. A familiar voice called my name. My heart clenched. It was as if they all called my name at once. Shisui, my mother, my father. I turned, slowly. Standing there, in the hall, eyesblazing, was the only real ghost of the Uchiha.

"He looks like you," Kisame remarked.

"He's my brother."

My brother, who was my last remaining purpose. Who was the last real meaning to my life.

Whom I loved.

**{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}**

**Epilogue**

_But I can't tell him any of this; he wouldn't understand. His face is contorted with hatred. He has become what I've made him, and he will never love me again. _

_Feebly he struggles to free himself from my grasp, for I have pinned him to the wall, to show my strength, to show my cruelty, to keep him safe._

_He is the best part of me, the only part worth saving. _

_Sasuke. _

_Sasuke. _

_May you never understand what I have done and why, and leave me to follow this dark path alone. May you live to see peace. I will watch over you, silent and sure. _

_And I will be your shadow._

**End**

_Author's Note: I think Itachi was watching over his brother to the very end, when he freed him from Orochimaru's curse seal, hoping that despite the evil he had committed himself, Sasuke might live on to redeem the Uchiha name. The tragedy, I suppose, is that Sasuke ended up learning the truth from Uchiha Madara, and turning his vengeful heart against Konoha instead. But at least Itachi died believing he'd saved his brother. Believing his life, at last, had meaning._


End file.
